Livonia, Rus’ and the Baltic Crusades in the Thirteenth Century

East Central and Eastern Europe

in the Middle Ages, 450–1450

General Editor

Florin Curta

Volume 29

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ecee

Livonia, Rus’ and the Baltic
Crusades in the Thirteenth
Century

By

Anti Selart
Translated by

Fiona Robb

LEIDEN | BOSTON
Originally published in German by Böhlau in 2007: Livland und die Rus’ im 13. Jahrhundert
(ISBN: 978-3-412-16006-7).

Cover illustration: The 12th-century enkolpion with an image of Virgin Mary was found in Viltina cemetery
on the Saaremaa Island, western Estonia. The findings of this type enkolpions concentrate in the region
of Kiev, the westernmost exemplar is known from the Gotland Island in the middle of the Baltic Sea.
Archaeological collection of the Institute of History, Tallinn University (AI 3884: 2956).
©Photo by Tõnno Jonuks.

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Contents

Preface ix
List of Abbreviations x

Introduction 1

1 The Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 20

1.1 The Schism and the Russian Church 20
1.2 Relations between the Russian Principalities and their Western
Neighbours 28
1.3 The Crusades and the Schismatics 42
1.4 The Mission from Denmark and Bremen to the Eastern
Baltic Coast 47
1.5 The Papal Curia and North-Eastern Europe 55

Part 1

2 The Beginning of the Crusades in Livonia and their Impact

on Rus’ 61
2.1 The Influence of Rus’ on the Eastern Baltic Coast at the End of the
Twelfth Century 61
2.2 Bishop Meinhard of Livonia, Polotsk, and the Mission to the Livs 75
2.3 The Crusade in Livonia under Bishop Albert of Riga
(1199–1229) 84
2.3.1 The Rigan Church and the Daugava Principalities 89
2.3.2 The Conquest of Lettgallia 107
2.3.3 The Conquest of Estonia 115

3 Livonia and Rus’ in the 1230s and 1240s 127

3.1 Livonia, Pskov, and Novgorod c. 1230 127
3.2 The Legation of Baldwin of Aulne 129
3.3 The Treaty of Stensby of 1238 and the Military Campaigns against
Rus’ of 1240–42 142
3.3.1 The Battle of the Neva in 1240 147
3.3.2 The Conquest of Votia in 1240–41 154
3.3.3 Livonia and Pskov, 1240–42 159
vi contents

4 Rus’ in the Catholic Sources from the First Half of the

Thirteenth Century 171
4.1 The Sources for South-Western Rus’ 171
4.2 Rutheni in the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia 179
4.3 Papal Policy: Livonia and Rus’ 183
4.4 Papal Policy: Finland and Rus’ 190

Part 2

5 Relations between Rus’ and Livonia under Archbishop Albert Suerbeer

(1245–73) 197
5.1 The Foundation of the Archbishopric of Riga 197
5.2 Polotsk, Livonia, and Lithuania 199
5.3 The Attempts at Church Union in South-Western Rus’ and the
Legation of Albert Suerbeer 210
5.4 The Attempts at Church Union in Northern and
North-Western Rus’ 218
5.5 Didman’s Votia Campaign of 1256 229

6 Livonia and Rus’, 1260–1330 234

6.1 Prince Dovmont’s Seizure of Power in Pskov 234
6.2 Livonia, Lithuania, and Polotsk 236
6.3 The Battle of Wesenberg in 1268 242
6.4 Livonia, Novgorod, and Pskov, 1270–80 252
6.5 The Internal Conflict in Livonia 259
6.6 Livonia and Rus’ in the 1320s 270

7 Russian Principalities in the Eastern European Sources, 1250–1350 279

7.1 The Papacy, the Mongols, and Rus’ 279
7.2 The Role of Rus’ in the Disputes between the Teutonic Order,
the Archbishop of Riga, and the City of Riga 286
7.3 Rus’ and its Western Neighbours in the First Half of the
Fourteenth Century 292

Conclusion 309
Contents vii

Appendix 312
Secular and Ecclesiastical Rulers 312
Genealogical Tables 314
Map: Livonia and its Neighbours in the Thirteenth Century 316
Map: North-Eastern Europe in the Thirteenth Century 317
Multilingual Place-Name Concordance 318
Bibliography 325
Primary Sources 325
Secondary Literature 332
Index 373
Preface

This monograph is a revised English translation of the German book Livland

und die Rus’ im 13. Jahrhundert, published in Cologne by Böhlau in 2007 as vol-
ume 21 of the series “Quellen und Studien zur baltischen Geschichte” issued by
the Baltische Historische Kommission (Göttingen, Germany). Apart from the
slight amendments and updating of the text, the bibliography has also been
updated and ‘anglicized’ to some extent. A few minor parts were abridged to
avoid unnecessary repetition and details of local interest tangential to the
main narrative. Any flaws and mistakes identified and located by reviewers
have been corrected. The adaptation of the monograph was supported by
Estonian Research Council grant no. PUT 107.
The Baltic region is a multilingual area in which several languages have been
used throughout history. Accordingly, there are parallel traditions of place-
name usage. Since the medieval and early modern language of administration
and correspondence was predominantly German in this region, or more spe-
cifically Middle Low German in the Middle Ages, and a major part of the rel-
evant historiography is written in German, preference has generally been given
to German place names in this book. English place names have been used
where there is an established equivalent. The toponyms of local languages
can be found in the index and in the multilingual place-name concordance
(p. 318). The transliteration of Russian names and places follows the Library
of Congress standard, except where the established English equivalents differ.
I would like to thank the Baltische Historische Kommission and its presi-
dent Professor Matthias Thumser, and the Böhlau publishing house for the
kind permission to publish the book in English. I would also like to thank
Professor Florin Curta, who accepted the monograph in his series “East Central
and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450”, and Dr Fiona Robb, who
carefully carried out the translation work. Marcella Mulder of Brill was respon-
sible for all the organisational and technical aspects of publication. Dr Tõnno
Jonuks helped to find the cover illustration, commented on it, and provided
the photograph. Kristel Roog drew the maps, and last but not least, Madis
Maasing produced the index. I’m extremely grateful to everyone who has sup-
ported, collaborated, and provided encouragement throughout the course of
this work.
List of Abbreviations

AR Akten und Rezesse der livländischen Ständetage

AV Analecta Vaticana
BD Bullarium Danicum
BGP Die Berichte der Generalprokuratoren des Deutschen Ordens
BLDR Библиотека литературы Древней Руси
DG Древнейшие государства на территории СССР. Материалы
и исследования, 1975 (1976)–1990 (1991); Древнейшие
государства Восточной Европы. Материалы и исследования
1991 (1994)–
DD Diplomatarium Danicum
DPR  Documenta Pontificum Romanorum historiam Ucrainae
illustrantia
FMU Finlands medeltidsurkunder
GVNP Грамоты Великого Новгорода и Пскова
HCL Heinrichs Livländische Chronik
HRM Акты исторические, относящиеся к России
HUB Hansisches Urkundenbuch
LGU Livländische Güterurkunden
LR Livländische Reimchronik
LUB Liv-, Esth- und Curländisches Urkundenbuch
LUR Liv-, est- und kurländische Urkundenregesten
LVA Senās Latvijas vēstures avoti
LVIŽ Latvijas Vēstures Institūta Žurnals
LübUB Urkundenbuch der Stadt Lübeck
MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica
MGH SS Monumenta Germaniae Historica, scriptores
Mitt. Riga 
Mitteilungen aus dem Gebiete der Geschichte Liv-, Est- und
Kurlands 1837–1904; Mitteilungen aus der livländischen Geschichte
1907–1939
NA Valentin L. Ianin, Новгородские акты
NIS Новгородский исторический сборник
NL1 Новгородская первая летопись
NL4 Новгородская четвертая летопись
OM Ordines militares. Colloquia torunensia historica
OSP Oxford Slavonic Papers
OUS Odense University Studies in History and Social Sciences 1970–
2002; University of Southern Denmark Studies in History and
Social Sciences 2002–
List Of Abbreviations xi

PG Полоцкие грамоты
PL Псковские летописи
PSRL Полное собрание русских летописей
PUB Preußisches Urkundenbuch
REA Registrum Ecclesiae Aboensis
RLU Russisch-livländische Urkunden
SD Svenskt diplomatarium
SL1 Софийская первая летопись
SRP Scriptores rerum Prussicarum
ST Sverges traktater
ZfO  Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 1952–1994; Zeitschrift für
Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 1995–
Introduction

Relations between the northern crusaders, the peoples of the Baltic, and the
population of Rus’ in the 13th century have impinged to a greater or lesser
extent on the history of all the nationalities now living in the Baltic region.
Consequently, this period is crucial for determining the way in which these
groups and the modern states now occupying this space view their history. On
an even larger scale, the subject is also linked to the formation of both Catholic
Europe and the Orthodox world as well as the relationship between them. The
Baltic is an area that has been disputed by various political powers across the
centuries, and this tension is reflected in the historiography, both in terms of
volume and approach. The amount of literature devoted to the region, either
as its main subject or just tangentially, and the variety of points of view and
interpretation are vast. Authors in this field have tended to be swayed more
by their own personal political and ideological prejudices than by the actual
source material or professional standards of scholarship. This is regardless
of whether the subject of their research is the establishment of the German
colony in Livonia, the end of the Estonians’ and Letts’ age-old freedoms, the
defence of Russia, or simply an episode in the history of the crusades.1 This
tendency had been established by the 15th and 16th centuries at the very latest,
when Russia and its immediate western neighbours each portrayed themselves
as the victim of the other’s unjust aggression. This perspective found expres-
sion in the 15th- and 16th-century chronicles from Livonia and elsewhere in
eastern European on the one hand, and the Russian chronicles (летописи)
on the other, all of which gave accounts not only of contemporary events but
those from the more distant past as well. These works, most notably the 16th-
century Russian Nikon Chronicle (Никоновская летопись) and the chronicle
of the Reval pastor Balthasar Russow (d. 1600), in turn served as the basis for
the first scholarly investigations in the 18th and 19th centuries, resulting in the
creation of certain historiographical traditions some of which have continued

1  For recent studies in English on the modern concept of the Baltic crusades, see Linda
Kaljundi, “The Chronicler and the Modern World: Henry of Livonia and the Baltic Crusades
in the Enlightenment and National Traditions,” in Crusading and Chronicle Writing on the
Medieval Baltic Frontier. A Companion to the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, ed. Marek Tamm
et al. (Farnham, 2011), pp. 409–56; Anti Selart, “Historical Legitimacy and Crusade in Livonia,”
in A Storm against the Infidel. Crusading in the Iberian Peninsula and the Baltic Region, ed.
Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt and Torben K. Nielsen (Turnhout, 2015) (Outremer. Studies in the
Crusades and the Latin East 8) (forthcoming).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004284753_002

2 Introduction

to this very day. A distinctly unforgiving tone skewed the writings of many
scholars from the outset, who often saw themselves as the descendants of one
of the medieval powers from this region.
From the end of the 12th century onwards various Catholic powers orga-
nized military expeditions and crusades against the pagans in the Baltic. This
had the consequence of bringing the conquerors of these lands into conflict
with Rus’ and its various principalities. This development raises a whole series
of questions. Was this confrontation merely a by-product of the war against
the pagans or did the crusaders harbour secret plans from the beginning of
gaining control of Russian territories as well, or perhaps even the whole of
Rus’? Who were these crusades initiated by: popes and emperors, or local
­powers? Were they a Scandinavian, Livonian or German enterprise? The differ-
ent ways in which these questions have been answered have determined the
different points of departure adopted by historians, ranging from detailed and
carefully researched studies on specific questions, eschewing generalization,
to free adaptations of the historical facts to preconceived schema. One of the
most influential interpretations was the dictum of Drang nach Osten (‘push
to the East’), condemning what was seen as the German tradition of eastward
expansion. This notion originated in Polish and Russian journalism in the sec-
ond half of the 19th century, but was then adopted by German authors, who
transformed it into a positive development as a crucial stage in German cul-
tural dominance of the area.2 The political struggles and conflicts of the 20th
century gave renewed impetus to the East-West dichotomy, one of whose con-
sequences was the enthusiastic reception given to the idea of heroic resistance
against Western aggressors in the Russian tradition and those derived from it.
The saintly Russian grand prince Aleksandr Nevskii (d. 1263) and the Livonian
master of the Teutonic Order Wolter von Plettenberg (d. 1535) in particular
served as symbolic figures used by many writers to project their contemporary
ideas of the enemy onto Livonian-Russian relations in the past.3
Above all in the past few decades the so-called pluralist use of the term ‘cru-
sades’ has started to prevail as a result of the increasing influence of Anglo-
American historiography in general and its impact on the history of the Baltic

2  Wolfgang Wippermann, Der ‘Deutsche Drang nach Osten’. Ideologie und Wirklich­keit eines
politischen Schlagwortes (Darmstadt; 1981) (Impulse der Forschung 35); cf. Hans-Heinrich
Nolte, ‘Drang nach Osten’. Sowjetische Geschichtsschreibung der deutschen Ostexpansion
(Cologne-Frankfurt/Main, 1976) (Studien zur Ge­sellschaftstheorie).
3  See Norbert Angermann, “Livländisch-russische Beziehungen im Mittelalter,” in Wolter von
Plettenberg und das mittelalterliche Livland, ed. Norbert Angermann and Ilgvars Misāns
(Lüneburg, 2001) (Schriften der Baltischen Historischen Kommission 7), pp. 129–32.
Introduction 3

region in the 13th century in particular. According to this approach, the term
‘crusade’ refers not just to the crusades in the Holy Land but to all wars based
on the same ideology as the crusades.4 Thanks to this line of research it has
become possible to move away from the narrowly defined national scholarly
traditions.
A closer look at these different historiographical tendencies (which cannot,
of course, be completely separated from one another) must first examine what
is known as the ‘patriotic’ Russian school of thought.5 Here the past is exam-
ined from the perspective of a strong Russian centralized power and its aim
of territorial expansion. A key component is veneration of Prince Aleksandr
Iaroslavich, better known as Aleksandr Nevskii,6 while the Catholic or ‘German’
camp is portrayed as the aggressor. In both the ecclesiastical Orthodox and
secular strands of this tradition it was claimed that the pope and the Catholic
church as a whole, depicted as a powerful, cruel and ruthless institution moti-
vated purely by self-interest, were behind the eastward aggression. The wars
to propagate Catholicism in the area now comprising modern Estonia, Latvia,
and Finland, bearing in mind that these countries were ruled by Rus’ in the
12th century, must have been aimed from the beginning against Rus’ and the
Orthodox church since the pagan peoples of the Baltic region were too weak to
be the real target of the aggressors. Even just temporary agreements between
individual Russian territories and the Catholics are seen as ill-fated and fraught

4  Edgar N. Johnson, “The German Crusade on the Baltic,” in A History of the Crusades, ed.
Kenneth M. Setton, vol. 3: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, ed. Harry W. Hazard
(Madison, 1975), pp. 545–85; Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades. The Baltic and the
Catholic Frontier, 1100–1525 (Minneapolis, 1980) (New Studies in Medieval History); William L.
Urban, The Livonian Crusade, 2nd ed. (Chicago, 2004); William L. Urban, The Baltic Crusade,
2nd ed. (Chicago, 1994); Norman Housley, The Later Crusades, 1274–1580. From Lyons to
Alcazar (Oxford, 1992), pp. 322–75.
5  This terminology is used in Igor N. Danilevskii, Русские земли глазами современников и
потомков (XII–XIV вв.). Курс лекций (Moscow, 2000).
6  The literature published on the figure of Aleksandr Nevskii and on the battles of the Neva
and of the Ice at Lake Peipus is neverending. For selective bibliographies, see Anti Selart,
“Aleksander Nevski: Märkmeid ühe püha suurvürsti postuumse karjääri kohta,” Akadeemia
12 (2000), 115–48; Frithjof B. Schenk, Aleksandr Nevskij. Heiliger—Fürst—Nationalheld. Eine
Erinnerungsfigur im russischen kulturellen Gedächtnis 1263–2000 (Cologne-Weimar-Vienna,
2004) (Beiträge zur Geschichte Osteuropas 36); Igor N. Danilevskii, “Александр Невский:
парадоксы исторической памяти,” in “Цепь времен”. Проблемы исторического сознания,
ed. Lorina P. Repina (Moscow, 2005), pp. 119–32; Donald Ostrowski, “Alexander Nevskii’s
‘Battle on the Ice’: The creation of a Legend,” Russian History 33 (2006), 289–312; Mari Isoaho,
The Image of Aleksandr Nevskiy in Medieval Russia. Warrior and Saint (Leiden-Boston, 2006)
(The Northern World 21).
4 Introduction

with danger or even treacherous. Such a view of history has been propounded
by modern scholars such as George Vernadsky (1887–1973), Vladimir Pashuto
(1918–83), and Igor Shaskolskii (1918–95), as well as by Patriarch Aleksii of
Moscow (1929–2008),7 to name only a few.8 The hypothesis of Western aggres-
sion allows authors to explain everything that happened with a view to sup-
porting the desired conclusion. For example, the Russian archaeologist Elena
Rybina, the author of a series of notable works on the economic history of
Novgorod, explained the changing pattern in the importation of western
European goods to Novgorod as identified based on the archaeological evi-
dence as follows: if a particular commodity turns up in the archaeological finds
less frequently in the 13th century than previously, this can be attributed to
Western aggression in the Baltic; however, if it turns up more frequently, then
this means that merchants refused to be affected by the aggressive policies of
Western rulers.9
A fascinating aspect of this now virtually abandoned school of thought is
how it was perfected to the level of absolute absurdity in the period from about
1940 to the end of the 1960s in the works not of Russian authors, but histori-
ans from the countries conquered by or dependent upon the Soviet Union. Its
most extreme form can be found in the East German-based Austrian historian
Eduard Winter (1896–1982). One of his works includes such chapter headings
as ‘The Papacy’s General Attack on Rus’,’ (Der Generalangriff des Papsttums auf
die Rus’) or ‘Rus’ in a Pincer Attack between East and West’ (Die Rus’ im konzen-
trischen Angriff von Ost und West). The tract in question describes the plans
of the popes, together with another force called ‘feudalism’ but not defined in
greater detail, to conquer Rus’. It was in pursuit of this objective, according to
Winter, that the popes aimed to establish a papal state in the Baltic and thereby
surround Rus’ with aggressive Catholic territories in that region, just as they
allegedly tried to do in the Balkans and Poland. The popes were supposedly
working in close alliance with the Mongols, whose invasions made it impos-
sible for the Russians to drive the Germans from Livonia. Pagan Lithuania
was, so the argument goes, later used as a tool by the popes against Rus’.10 The

7  Aleksii II (Ridiger), Православие в Эстонии (Moscow, 1999), pp. 6–67.

8  See the bibliography in Natalia A. Kazakova, “Внешняя политика Новгорода в русской
и советской историографии,” in NIS 1 (11) (1982), 146–64.
9   Elena A. Rybina, Торговля средневекового Новгорода. Историко-археологические
очерки, (Velikii Novgorod, 2001), pp. 232, 241–42.
10  Eduard Winter, Russland und das Papsttum, vol. 1: Von der Christianisierung bis zu den
Anfängen der Aufklärung (Berlin, 1960) (Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte Osteuropas
6/1), pp. 69–109. See also Erich Donnert, “Heinrich von Lettland und die Anfänge der
Introduction 5

standard of scholarship of such works published in the Soviet Union around

the middle of the 20th century led Hans-Heinrich Nolte to sum-up pithily: “A
subject without research”.11
Closely linked to the theme of aggression against Rus’ is an approach, which
has a number of variants, that sees the wars conducted in the Livonian-Russian
borderlands in the 13th century not as local conflicts, but a clash between East
and West, finally resulting in the estrangement of the Catholic and Orthodox
worlds, as well as representing the origin of a clear and insurmountable antag-
onism.12 Accordingly, Grand Prince Aleksandr Nevskii had made the right
choice for Russia’s future in the 1240s and 1250s by deciding to collaborate
with the Mongols, thus allowing the emergence of a confrontation with the
Catholic world which guaranteed Russia’s unique cultural and ethnic ­identity.13
Relations between the Livonian states and Novgorod, Pskov and Polotsk, and
particularly between Galicia-Volhynia and Poland, were occasionally also
seen as the expression of a universal opposition between the Holy Roman
Emperor and the pope, in which Rus’ allegedly played the role of the Staufen
dynasty’s ally and counterpoise to the papacy.14

Deutschherrschaft in Livland,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte der UdSSR und der volksde-
mokratischen Länder Europas 3 (1959), 336–40.
11  Nolte, Drang, p. 124. See also Vera I. Matusova, “Zur Rezeption des Deutschen Ordens in
Rußland,” in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart der Ritterorden. Die Rezeption der Idee und die
Wirklichkeit, ed. Zenon Hubert Nowak and Roman Czaja (Toruń, 2001) (OM 11), pp. 133–44.
12  Albert M. Ammann, Kirchenpolitische Wandlungen im Ostbaltikum bis zum Tode Alexander
Newski’s. Studien zum Werden der Russischen Orthodoxie (Rome, 1936) (Orientalia christi-
ana analecta 105), pp. 305–08; Oskar Halecki, Borderlands of Western Civilization. A History
of East Central Europe (New York, 1952), pp. 56–91; Friedrich Benninghoven, Der Orden der
Schwertbrüder. Fratres milicie Christi de Livonia (Cologne-Graz, 1965) (Ostmitteleuropa in
Vergangenheit und Gegenwart 9), p. 383; Johnson, German Crusade, pp. 561–62.
13  Some examples of historians working under different political systems but arriving at
similar views are George Vernadsky, The Mongols and Russia (New Haven, 1953), p. 149;
Anatolii Kirpichnikov, “Александр Невский: между Западом и Востоком,” Вопросы
истории 1996, 11–12, p. 117; Danilevskii, Русские земли, pp. 217–20.
14  Bruno Widera, “Byzanz und Beziehungen zwischen Großfürsten der Rus’, Staufern und den
Päpsten 1157–1207,” in Studia Byzantina. Beiträge aus der byzantinistischen Forschung der
DDR zum XIII. Internationalen Byzantinistenkongreß in Oxford 1966, ed. Johannes Irmscher
(s.l., 1966) (Wissenschaftliche Beiträge Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg 23
[K 1]), pp. 13–26; idem, “Die politischen Beziehungen zwischen Deutschland und Rußland
in der Zeit der Salier und Staufer,” in Russisch-Deutsche Beziehungen von der Kiever Rus’ bis
zur Oktoberrevolution. Studien und Aufsätze ed. Heinz Lemke and Bruno Widera (Berlin,
1976) (Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte Osteuropas 19), pp. 31–67.
6 Introduction

The very opposite view to that of the ‘patriotic’ Russian school of thought is
found in the historiographical tradition on the Russian threat to the Christian
colonies in Livonia and Finland along with the resistance to that threat.
The analysis of events is often appropriated here to argue for the purported
‘Germanness’ of these cultures. In addition, the tradition of legal scholarship
within this strand overestimated the formal juridical aspects present in the
medieval sources by regarding 13th-century papal bulls and princely corre-
spondence as equivalent to modern legislation. According to this perspec-
tive, the areas recently converted to Christianity were then faced, in defence
of Western culture, with repelling the ‘savage attack’ from the East; or, to put
it more diplomatically, the influence of the Orthodox religion was feared
in Livonia and the hope was that Catholicism could be spread east of Lake
Peipus. This approach had certain similarities to the pan-Russian school of
thought in its presentation of the facts and even in the hypotheses based on
them, but differed in the emotional tone of the narrative, value judgements,
and, of course, by providing a different answer to the question of who was the
aggressor. A crucial role was attributed to the Roman curia in these versions
too. As well as encompassing the Baltic German tradition, particular mention
should be made of the contribution of the Finnish and Finnish-Swedish histo-
rians Jalmari Jaakkola (1885–1964), and Gustav Adolf Donner (1902–40) to this
interpretation. Jaakkola argued that there had been a permanent ‘eastern cri-
sis’ in the relations between Rus’ and the West from the end of the 1230s until
1270.15 In Estonia Hendrik Sepp (1888–1943), writing in the period between
the two world wars, claimed it had been a tragedy that the expansion led by
the Roman curia had not been capable of saving the Finnish peoples east of the
Baltic from Russian rule and the consequent Russification that this entailed in
the modern era.16
A series of rather more marginal historical approaches were developed
roughly along the lines of these overarching schema. The Estonian folklorist
Oskar Loorits (1900–61), who had a distinctly hostile attitude towards the West
and the Germanic peoples, contrasted what he called the German mission by
sword with a peaceful Orthodox mission, which, according to him, was distin-
guished by its great spiritual force, and also considered the Christianization of

15  See the overview provided by Jukka Korpela, “‘The Russian Threat Against Finland’ in the
Western Sources Before the Peace of Noteborg (1323),” Scandinavian Journal of History 22
(1997), 161–62.
16  Hendrik Sepp, “Eesti idapiiri kaitse kuni 15. sajandi keskeni,” Sõdur 12 (1930), 123–27.
Introduction 7

Livonia to be part of the conflict between Rome and Constantinople.17 In addi-

tion, in a more restricted context, a succession of authors have portrayed the
hero of their particular study, whether Bishop Albert of Riga,18 the papal legate
William of Modena,19 Bishop Thomas of Finland20 or the Order of the Sword
Brothers,21 as the instigator and master of events.
This picture of aggression, animosity, and conflict has begun to break down
in the historical studies published since the 1980s. One of the pioneers of this
development was the German historian of Baltic-German origin Manfred
Hellmann (1912–1992).22 It is above all Norbert Angermann and his pupils who
have made a notable contribution in this direction.23 In Russia, recent discus-
sion has focused mainly on the significance of the Battle of the Ice at Lake
Peipus (1242). This was triggered to a large extent by the publication, in 1989,
of the Russian translation of the book by John Fennell (1918–92) on Rus’ in the
13th century.24 Despite the fact that many scholars have not been able to come

17  Oskar Loorits, “Zur christlichen Terminologie bei den Esten, Liven und Letten,” Trames.
Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences 9 (2005), 211–27. Cf. Anti Selart, “Gehören
die Esten zum Westen oder Osten? Oskar Loorits zwischen friedvollen Finnen und
aggressiven Germanen,” in Die Neuerfindung des Raumes. Grenzüberschreitungen und
Neuordnungen, ed. Alexander Drost and Michael North (Cologne-Weimar-Vienna, 2013),
pp. 143–59.
18  Gisela Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert von Riga. Ein Bremer Domherr als Kirchenfürst im
Osten (1199–1229) (Hamburg, 1958) (Nord- und osteuropäische Geschichtsstudien 2).
19  Gustav Adolf Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm von Sabina, Bischof von Modena 1222–1234. Päpst-
licher Legat in den nordischen Ländern († 1251) (Helsingfors, 1929) (Societas Scientiarum
Fennica. Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 2/5).
20  Jalmari Jaakkola, Suomen varhaiskeskiaika. Kristillisen Suomen synty (Porvoo-Helsinki,
1938) (Suomen historia 3), pp. 224–92; Kauko Pirinen, Suomen kirkon historia, vol. 1:
Keskiaika ja uskonpuhdistuksen aika (Porvoo-Helsinki-Juva, 1991), pp. 58–62.
21  Benninghoven, Orden.
22  Manfred Hellmann, “Begegnungen zwischen Ost und West auf baltischem Boden im
13. Jahrhundert,” Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte 26 (1978), 123–24, 133–35;
idem, “Der Deutsche Orden im politischen Gefüge Altlivlands,” ZfO 40 (1991), 491–92; cf.
Friedrich Benninghoven, “Zur Rolle des Schwertbrüderordens und des Deutschen Ordens
im politischen Gefüge Alt-Livlands,” ZfO 41 (1992), 178.
23  E.g. Angermann, “Livländisch-russische Beziehungen im Mittelalter,” pp. 129–43.
24  John Fennell, The Crisis of Medieval Russia, 1200–1304 (London-New York, 1993; 1st edition,
1983) (Longman History of Russia).
8 Introduction

to terms with the deheroization of their heroes,25 historians on both sides of

the imaginary medieval frontier have since generally come to take the view
that neither the history of Livonia nor that of Novgorod, Pskov or Polotsk can
be treated in isolation from its surrounding region and that the internal cohe-
siveness of these places during this period should not be overestimated.26

Almost all the sources for the history of Livonia and Rus’ in the 13th century
have been published. It is perhaps inevitable that the quality of the older pub-
lications does not generally meet modern standards, but most editions can still
be used as long as the research subject lies outside the philological or diplo-
matic field. A large volume of the documents published by earlier historians
has subsequently been reedited, usually with much greater precision in those
cases where it was possible to use the original documents and not just early
printed editions.
The majority of the charters and letters relating to Livonia were published
as part of the series Liv-, Est- und Kurländisches Urkundenbuch started by
Friedrich Georg von Bunge (1802–97) in 1853; the material for the 12th to 14th
centuries is contained in the first four volumes and the sixth volume. The cen-
tral place in medieval Livonia’s chronicle writing is held by the Chronicle of
Henry of Livonia, written in Latin. Henry of Livonia, the priest thought to be the
author of the chronicle, is likely to have come from the area of Magdeburg to
Livonia c. 1205.27 He personally took part in a number of military and mission-

25  See for example the discussion in Древний Псков. Исследования средневекового города,
ed. Vasilii D. Beletskii (St Petersburg, 1994), pp. 136–49.
26  E.g. Manfred Hellmann, “Grundlagen und Voraussetzungen der Livlandmission,” in Die
Deutschen im Baltikum. Geschichte und Kultur. Fünf Vorträge, ed. Horst Kühnel (Munich,
1991) (Veröffentlichungen des Hauses des Deutschen Ostens 3), pp. 10–11; Evgeniia L.
Nazarova, “Ливония между Империей и Русью (конец XII—начало XIII века),” in
Славяне и их соседи 8 (1998), 66; Henadz Sahanovich, “Полацк i нямецкая калонiя на
Дзвiне (паводле хронiкi Генрыха),” in Беларускi Гiстарычны Агляд 5 (1998), 3–26; Edgar
Hösch, “Die Ostpolitik des Deutschen Ordens im 13. Jahrhundert,” in Balten—Slaven—
Deutsche: Aspekte und Perspektiven kultureller Kontakte. Festschrift für Friedrich Scholz zum
70. Geburtstag, ed. Ulrich Obst and Gerhard Ressel (Münster, 1999) (Veröffentlichungen
des Slavisch-Baltischen Seminars der Universität Münster. Sprache—Literatur—
Kulturgeschichte 1), pp. 87–102; Boris N. Floria, У истоков конфессионального раскола
славянского мира (XIII в.) (St Petersburg, 2004) (Bibliotheca slavica).
27  For an overview and bibliography, see Norbert Angermann, “Die mittelalterliche
Chronistik,” in Geschichte der deutschbaltischen Geschichtsschreibung, ed. Georg von
Rauch (Cologne-Vienna, 1986) (Ostmitteleuropa in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart 20),
pp. 3–20. For English translations of 13th-century Baltic and Novgorod chronicles, see The
Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, trans. James A. Brundage, 2nd ed. (New York, 2003) (Records
Introduction 9

ary expeditions, but his principal occupation was as priest to the Lettgallians
in Papendorf, almost 100 km north-east of Riga in what is now modern Latvia.
There is still no consensus about why Henry began to write the chronicle
c. 1224, completing it in 1227.28 Its tone at least is distinctly apologetic insofar
as it justifies the privileges and merits of the Rigan church as against those of
Denmark and other rivals. Although it is based to a large extent on Henry’s
own memory of events, the author must certainly also have used charters and
other records. Indeed, the chronicle stands out for its precise chronology, gen-
erally accepted as reliable, which is based largely on the calculation of Bishop
Albert’s years in office. Its oldest surviving manuscript, which was the main
source used by Leonid Arbusow Jr (1882–1951) in his reconstruction of the orig-
inal text, dates from the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries.29
The other Livonian chronicle from the 13th century, the older Livonian
Rhymed Chronicle written in Middle High German, narrates the history of
Livonia up to about 1290 in 12,017 lines. This chronicle emanates from the
milieu of the Teutonic Order; it was written by a Teutonic Knight based in
Livonia during the last quarter of the 13th century and thus reflects late 13th-
century attitudes. Its narrative revolves around the battles with the pagans
and the exaltation of military virtue. It was traditionally classified as an exam-
ple of what is known as a Tischbuch, which was read out at the communal
meals of the brothers. Recent research suggests, however, that its original pur-
pose might have been to help the Order recruit external troops for crusades,
an interpretation which would in turn explain the important role ascribed
in the narrative to crusaders who did not belong to the Order.30 Apart from

of Western Civilization); The Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, trans. Jerry C. Smith and William
L. Urban (London-New York, 2006) (Indiana University publications. Uralic and Altaic
series 128); The Chronicle of Novgorod 1016–1471, trans. Robert Michell and Nevill Forbes
(London, 1914) (Camden Third Series 25). The source translations in this study are based
on these publications and modified where necessary.
28  Tamm, Crusading and Chronicle Writing. Cf. Mihkel Mäesalu, “A Crusader Conflict
Mediated by a Papal Legate. The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia as a Legal Text,” The
Medieval Chronicle 8 (2013), 233–46.
29  Leonid Arbusow, “Die handschriftliche Überlieferung des ‘Chronicon Livoniae’ Heinrichs
von Lettland,” Latvijas Universitātes Raksti 15 (1926), 189–341 and 16 (1927), 125–202.
30  Hartmut Kugler, “Über die ‘Livländische Reimchronik’. Text, Gedächtnis und Topographie,”
Jahrbuch der Brüder-Grimm-Gesellschaft 2 (1992), 103–04; Alan V. Murray, “The Structure,
Genre and Intended Audience of the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle,” in Crusade and
Conversion on the Baltic Frontier, 1150–1500, ed. Alan V. Murray (Aldershot, 2001), pp. 247–
50. The established critical edition of the chronicle, extant in two manuscripts from the
mid-14th and 15th centuries, was prepared by Leo Meyer (1830–1910).
10 Introduction

its author’s r­ecollections and the Order’s oral tradition, some of the factual
information provided in the chronicle is also based on written sources. It has
been suggested based on the fact that the bishops of Dorpat are mentioned
in some episodes that the chronicler also drew on the hypothetical ‘Dorpat
Annals’.31 But the Order’s own activity is also described in these sections of the
­narrative—relating to the military campaigns of 1240 and 1268—making such
an explanation unnecessary, while on the other hand it has not been proven
that the ‘Dorpat Annals’ ever existed.
A considerably more complex problem is posed by the tradition of Old
Russian narrative sources and their research history. In some cases, the Old
Russian chronicles (летописи) are annals continually kept up to date or con-
taining short intervals. These chronicles were sometimes corrected or added to,
either when the manuscripts were transcribed or a particular entry was deleted
or corrected. In most cases, however, the variants of the летописи that have
come down to us are reworked and consolidated versions of several chronicle
traditions.32 The most important Old Russian source for Livonian history in the
13th century is the older recension of the so-called First Novgorod Chronicle.33
This chronicle is practically contemporary to the events it describes. The first
part of the surviving manuscript, with entries up to 1234, was recorded in
the second half of the of the 13th century, while the following part dates to
c. 1330, with entries up to then and some later additions. The gaps in the manu-

31  Georg Rathlef, “Das Verhältniss der kleinen Meisterchronik zum Chronicon Livoniae
Hermanns von Wartberge und zur Reimchronik,” Verhandlungen der gelehrten Est-
nischen Gesellschaft zu Dorpat 8/2 (1875), 69; Friedrich Wachtsmuth, Ueber die Quellen
und den Verfasser der älteren livländischen Reimchronik. Separatabdruck aus der Einla-
dungsschrift zum Redeact im Gymnasium zu Mitau (Mitau, 1878), pp. 22–23; Vladimir T.
Pashuto, “Рифмованная хроника как источник по русской истории,” in Проблемы
общественно-политической истории России и славянских стран. Сборник статей
к 70-летию академика Михаил Н. Тихомирова, ed. V. I. Shunkov et al. (Moscow, 1963),
pp. 107–08.
32  For the state of research and bibliography on Old Russian literature, see Hans-Jürgen
Grabmüller, Die Pskover Chroniken. Untersuchungen zur russischen Regionalchronistik
im 13.–15. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden, 1975) (Schriften zur Geistesgeschichte des östlichen
Europa 10), pp. 11–22; Словарь книжников и книжности Древней Руси, ed. Dmitrij S.
Likhachev, vol. 1 (XI—первая половина XIV в.); vol. 2 (вторая половина XIV–XVI в.),
parts 1–2, (Leningrad, 1987–89); Iakov S. Lur’e, Россия древняя и Россия новая (Избранное)
(St Petersburg, 1997), pp. 31–41.
33  On the research history, see Aleksei A. Gippius, “К характеристике новгородского
владычного летописания XII–XIV вв.,” in Великий Новгород в истории средневековой
Европы. К 70-летию Валентина Л. Янина, ed. Aleksei A. Gippius et al. (Moscow, 1999),
pp. 352–54.
Introduction 11

script for the years 1272–99 have been filled in by the younger recension of the
chronicle from the 15th century, which transmits the same text as the older one
except for a few minor differences. Other 15th-century chronicles also contain
the information found in the same tradition with slight changes and additions
based on another, no longer known source.34 The main original source of the
chronicles was provided by the annals continued by scribes of the archbishop
of Novgorod.35 The original text for the years 1226–74 relevant to this study was
apparently written by the sacristan Timofei, who famously referred to him-
self in the chronicle.36 Whereas the style of the Russian chronicles of the 13th
century is generally extremely concise—containing only brief reports about
events deemed important—Timofei used a series of literary models as the
basis for his descriptions. It has been argued that his writing style, which is
adorned with a plethora of moralistic epithets, also bears some relation to the
conventions used in hagiographic texts.37
The chronicles of Pskov are extant in manuscripts from the 15th to 18th
centuries, but contain only scattered local references dating back to the mid-
13th century. Earlier events have been described at a later date based on other
sources such as the Novgorod chronicles and hagiographic accounts. A contin-
uous narrative does not begin until 1323, when its main subject is the military
clashes with Livonia.38
A special place in the Russian sources is assumed by two Old Russian vitae,
those of Prince Aleksandr Iaroslavich39 and Prince Dovmont,40 both of which
refer to Livonian history in the 13th century. Aleksandr Iaroslavich’s vita was

34  E.g. Новгородская четвертая летопись, ed. Fedor I. Pokrovskii et al. (Moscow, 2000)
(PSRL 4/1); Софийская первая летопись старшего извода, ed. Boris M. Kloss (Moscow,
2000) (PSRL 6/1).
35  Aleksei A. Gippius, “К истории сложения текста Новгородской первой летописи,” in
NIS 6 (16) (1997), 3–73; Gippius, “К характеристике,” pp. 354–361; cf. Alan Timberlake,
“Older and Younger Recensions of the First Novgorod Chronicle,” OSP, New Series 33
(2000), 1–35.
36  NL1, p. 70.
37  Gippius, “К истории,” pp. 9–11; Gippius, “К характеристике,” pp. 348, 350; Elena L.
Koniavskaia, “Проблема авторского самосознания в летописи,” in Древняя Русь.
Вопросы медиевистики 2000, 2, pp. 65–76.
38  For an historiographical overview, see Aleksei V. Valerov, Новгород и Псков. Очерки
политической истории Северо-Западной Руси XI–XIV веков (St Petersburg, 2004),
pp. 62–88.
39  Iurii K. Begunov, Памятник русской литературы XIII века “Слово о погибели Русской
земли” (Moscow-Leningrad, 1965), pp. 187–94.
40  PL 1, pp. 1–5; PL 2, pp. 16–18, 83–87.
12 Introduction

originally compiled soon after his death in 1263, either in the 1280s41 or per-
haps even as early as the 1260s.42 Given that the narrative is closely related to
the literary tradition of south-western Rus’, the composition of the text has
been linked to the immediate circle of Metropolitan Kirill (d. 1281), who was
originally from Galicia-Volhynia and spent long periods in Vladimir, in north-
eastern Rus’, in the 1260s and 1270s. The text of the vita known to us today is also
likely to contain traces of the Novgorod tradition.43 Aleksandr Iaroslavich’s vita
was already known in Pskov at the end of the 13th century, attaining some pop-
ularity there, and was used as a model in the writing of a similar regional vita,
that of Prince Dovmont of Pskov in the second quarter of the 14th century.44

The focus of this study is the 13th century. In this case it is a ‘long’ 13th cen-
tury, however, since the period under consideration stretches from the 1180s
to the 1320s and the portrayal of Rus’ in the Livonian sources is examined up
to the middle of the 14th century. The book’s structure is determined by the
course of historical events, on the one hand, providing it with its chronological
layout, while an analysis of the different historiographical traditions also pro-
vides certain points of intersection. Most of the historical scholarship in this
field takes the view, as discussed above, that there was a divide and ideological
antagonism between the Eastern and Western worlds, regardless of whether
this is seen as the prerequisite for, or result of, events in the 13th century. This
study sets out to examine whether such antagonism did in fact exist, by what
mechanisms it arose, and how—to the extent that it did exist—it manifested
itself and was used at the time. The work follows the sequence of recorded
events while also comparing the source texts, allowing not just the event itself
but also the intention of the relevant source to be analysed.
From the end of the 12th century onwards the centres of political power
in the various Scandinavian and north German territories gradually began to
bring the area known by consensus as ‘Livonia’ in the historiography under
their sovereignty. This entailed simultaneously both contact and conflict with

41  Begunov, Памятник, pp. 57–61. See also Lur’e, Россия, pp. 105–08.
42  Vladimir A. Kuchkin, “Борьба Александра Невского против Тевтонского ордена,”
in Восточная Европа в исторической ретроспективе. К 80-летию Владимира Т.
Пашуто, ed. Tatiana N. Dzhakson and Elena A. Melnikova (Moscow, 1999), pp. 133–34;
Aleksandr N. Uzhankov, “Некоторые наблюдения над “Словом о погибели Русской
земли”,” in Герменевтика древнерусской литературы 9 (1998), 113–26.
43  Valentin L. Ianin, Очерки комплексного источниковедения. Средневековый Новгород,
(Moscow; 1977), pp. 123–35.
44  Grabmüller, Pskover Chroniken, pp. 102–13; Valentina I. Okhotnikova, Повесть о
Довмонте. Исследование и тексты (Leningrad, 1985), pp. 7, 29, 55–56, 62.
Introduction 13

Rus’, which itself sought control over some of these lands. Livonia was consid-
ered by the Catholics as a land settled by ‘pagan tribes’; Rus’, while Christian,
was regarded as a schismatic nation. The campaigns against the pagans were
seen as crusades in West European culture and society. The question is whether
this crusade ideology was also extended to the military clashes with Rus’, and if
so, in what cases. A further issue is how the neighbouring Russian rulers actu-
ally responded to the crusades in the Baltic lands.
What powers in Catholic Europe might have been interested in a conflict
with Rus’ and what means did they have of manipulating this conflict? Can the
political situation be described as an opposition between different religious
confessions or, to put it another way, was politics determined by a conflict
between different confessions? Before discussing the possibility of a crusade
against Rus’ in Livonia, however, it must first be shown that the conditions
necessary for a military conflict between Catholic Europe and Rus’ were pres-
ent. In the 12th and 13th centuries the criteria for a crusade were designed and
formulated within a complex system of rules and practices. From the perspec-
tive of Livonian history, it must be asked whether it was possible to adapt these
legal criteria, ceremonies, and language to the wars against Rus’ and whether
there is any evidence of this in the sources.
This study thus has certain points of contact with the study of images and
the way in which foreign lands and peoples are imagined and the ‘Other’ is
constructed. However, it should be noted that an investigation solely of the
‘image’ of an adjoining region runs the risk of confining itself to generalizations
with little concrete substance and which tend to express the historian’s ideal-
ized vision rather than the situation as it was in the past. The sources, which
are primarily of a political nature, indeed provide no more than fragmentary
glimpses of the image held of the neighbouring region. Moreover, it must be
remembered that these fragments were recorded in the context of specific
disputes: they often do not provide evidence of widely held views, but rather
express isolated polemical attitudes. Consequently, when scholars attempt to
understand the reasons for what they see as an outsider’s supposedly distorted
idea of their country during some period in history, in this case in the Middle
Ages, there is always the risk of self-projection in which the scholars see them-
selves as the victims of an unfair image. The aim of examining the expressions
found in the sources in the context of contemporary political relationships is
to make it possible to be more precise when looking at descriptions of, or ref-
erences to, neighbouring peoples. This is because the sources drawn upon to
investigate the image of the other are at the same time, and indeed primarily,
sources on contemporary politics. It must also be taken into account that the
‘crusading literature’ that originated in north-eastern Europe in the 12th and
14 Introduction

13th ­centuries used language and interpretive frameworks already available

from the traditions of Latin written culture. ‘A new world’ was thus put ‘into old
words’,45 also with the aim of making it intelligible to readers in ‘Old Europe’.
The ethnonyms used in this work, such as ‘Estonians’, ‘Germans’, ‘Russians’
etc., do not designate the modern nations, but ethnic and political groups, just
as they do in the sources, and for that reason they are inevitably just as vague
and generalizing. Indeed, the same applies to the term ‘pagans’, which in some
contemporary sources refers to a political rather than a religious community
(see p. 72). Choosing the terms to describe the different political interest groups
is not without its complications. ‘Livonia’ as used here refers not to the area of
settlement of the Livs, but to the whole of Livonia, which generally coincided
from the 14th to 16th centuries with the territories of the modern republics of
Estonia and Latvia. As regards the 13th century, however, it was only during the
process of the different conquests and alliances that the territory of medieval
Livonia eventually came to be defined. Consequently, for this earlier period
‘Livonia’ refers to that part of the future medieval territory of Livonia which
had already been conquered or brought under control by the Catholic powers,
with the result that the geographical area covered by the term shifts over the
chronological period covered in this work and comes to designate a larger ter-
ritory at the end than at the beginning.
Livonia at the end of the 12th century initially meant no more than the
area in which Bishop Meinhard was active. The success of the crusaders, the
bishop’s vassals, and the Sword Brothers who set out from the city of Riga, just
founded in 1201, led to the defeat of the Livs by 1207 and of the principality
of Kokenhusen shortly afterwards. The Order entered into an alliance in 1208
with the Lettgallians of Tolowa, while in 1209 the prince of Gerzike was obliged
to become a vassal of the bishop of Riga. The conquest of the south-east of the
country began in 1208 and was completed by 1216. The Rigans were suddenly
pushed back by the Estonians, but then went on to complete the subjection of
mainland Estonia, following a major uprising by the Estonians in 1224, along
with the Danes, who were involved in military operations in Estonia continu-
ally from 1219 onwards. Ösel was defeated in 1227, although several rebellions
took place there later. Driven by the threat of famine, the Curonians surren-
dered to the papal vice-legate Baldwin in 1230–31. The Livonian army was

45  Marek Tamm, “A New World into Old Words: The Eastern Baltic Region and the Cultural
Geography of Medieval Europe,” in The Clash of Cultures on the Medieval Baltic Frontier,
ed. Alan V. Murray (Farnham, 2009), pp. 11–35; Marek Tamm, “Inventing Livonia: The
Name and Fame of a New Christian Colony on the Medieval Baltic Frontier,” ZfO 60 (2011),
186–209.
Introduction 15

defeated at the Battle of Saule in 1236 by the Lithuanians and the Semgallians.
As a consequence, in the 1240s it was necessary to defeat the Curonians again
and sometime later the Selonians and the Semgallians were also conquered.
The crusaders suffered a further defeat at the Battle of Durben in 1260, but the
Curonians and Semgallians were finally conquered by 1290. These, very roughly,
were the main phases in the military conquest of Livonia by the crusaders.
In the 13th and 14th centuries Livonia consisted of a conglomerate of inde-
pendent powers. These were the Rigan church and its bishops and, later on,
archbishops, other Livonian bishoprics, the Danish king and his representa-
tives in northern Estonia, the Order of the Sword Brothers (until 1237), the
Teutonic Order and, in the early part of this period, indigenous rulers too. These
protagonists were later joined by the Livonian trading towns, which originated
in the 13th century. It was therefore the exception rather than the rule for the
different Livonian forces to work together. On the other hand, a number of
Russian and Livonian powers did have common interests and would occasion-
ally form alliances in pursuit of these. The question must even be raised as to
what extent Livonia and Rus’ actually represented distinct societies and cul-
tures during the early 13th century, confronting each other as internally cohe-
sive entities.46
The entity known as Rus’ essentially comprised the lands ruled by the mem-
bers of the Riurikid dynasty. This house of Scandinavian origin established its
rule in the vast area along the rivers from the Baltic to the Black Sea during the
9th and 10th centuries. The head of the princely family resided in Kiev, where
Prince Vladimir Sviatoslavich (d. 1015) adopted Christianity from Byzantium
in 988.
Even though the Riurikid princes still ruled Rus’, the realm gathered around
this dynasty had long ceased to form a political unity in the 13th century. The
grand princes of Kiev had forfeited their central position and had been replaced
by new regional centres and dynasties by the 12th century. Although all these
dynasties descended from the house of Riurik, they fought among themselves

46  On the concept of the ‘frontier society’ in medieval Europe that has become popular in
recent years, see, for example, Medieval Frontier Societies, ed. Robert Bartlett and Angus
MacKay (Oxford, 1996); Robert Bartlett, The Making of Europe. Conquest, Colonization
and Cultural Change, 950–1350 (London, 1994); William Urban, “The Frontier Thesis and
the Baltic Crusade,” in Murray, Crusade and Conversion, pp. 45–71; Medieval Frontiers:
Concepts and Practices, ed. David Abulafia and Nora Berend (Aldershot, 2002); The
European Frontier. Clashes and Compromises in the Middle Ages, ed. Jörn Staecker (Lund,
2004) (Lund Studies in Medieval Archaeology 33; CCC papers 7); Nils Blomkvist, The
Discovery of the Baltic. The Reception of a Catholic World-System in the European North
(AD 1075–1225) (Leiden-Boston, 2005) (The Northern World 15).
16 Introduction

for dominance. The areas controlled by these centres were themselves some-
times split up into smaller, more or less dependent principalities governed by
the younger members of the princely line. Rulership in the Russian principal-
ities was generally based on two models: either governing power was handed
down, according to age, from the elder brother to the younger or from father to
son (Suzdal), or the local town had the main role, appointing the prince, whose
power was limited (Novgorod).
The social structure and the ways in which decisions were reached inter-
nally in many of the Russian principalities during the High Middle Ages
remains largely hypothetical, however. The number of written sources is often
very limited or indeed lacking in the case of several territories. Apart from the
princes themselves, the aristocracy (boyars) played an important role and also
controlled the towns. Towns with communal government or institutions were
unknown in Russia; merchants and craftsmen generally remained dependent
on the nobility even when they were personally free. Even where the Veche,
the meeting of free town inhabitants, played the decisive role in Novgorod and
elsewhere, these towns still cannot be considered communes in the Western
European sense since they did not include a legal definition of the citizenry or
communal legislation.
As Kiev lost its former importance, Chernigov und Volhynia came to prom-
inence in western Rus’. The princes of Volhynia were the rivals of the other
Russian princely houses, as well as of the Polish and Hungarian rulers. They suc-
ceeded in subjugating another western principality, Galicia, c. 1200. However,
due to internal conflicts and external claimants to the princely throne, the
power of the Volhynian house became consolidated only by the middle of the
13th century, by which time it was in a position to play the role of mightiest
Russian principality in the west. Chernigov for its part was the main centre
east of the Dniepr. Despite its fragmentation into smaller semi-­independent
principalities in the 12th century, the princes of Chernigov managed ­effectively
to control the area and participate in dynastic struggles in Russia until the
Mongol conquest.
The region from which the rivers Dniepr, Volga, and Daugava originate was
in turn the location of the principality of Smolensk. The independence of its
princely line was established by the middle of the 12th century, when Smolensk
became one of the main economic and cultural centres of Rus’. During its hey-
day from the 1160s to the 1230s Smolensk and its princes were able to influence
actively the political developments in Rus’ and partly to control the smaller
neighbouring principalities.
By far the most powerful rulers in northern Rus’ in the 12th and 13th centu-
ries, however, were the grand princes of Vladimir, of the Rostov-Suzdal dynasty.
Introduction 17

This area began to emerge as one of the core territories of Rus’ at this time. At
first Suzdal and then from the 1150s onwards, Vladimir, were the residences of
princes, developing into prominent towns of commerce and crafts. Vsevolod
Iur’evich ‘Big Nest’ (‘Bolshoe Gnezdo’, 1177–1212) became the permanent holder
of the title of grand prince of Vladimir. As a territory that had been recently
colonized, the area lacked a well-established nobility with the result that
princely power had fewer limitations than elsewhere in Rus’.
By contrast, Novgorod in the north-west had a different social and politi-
cal structure. Novgorod was already a large town in the Viking Age, collecting
tribute—mainly furs—from the extensive forests in the north and north-east.
The town community was dominated by aristocratic landowners (boyars), but
could express its political will in the Veche which elected the leaders of the
town community, the posadnik and tysiatskii. In the 12th and 13th centuries the
posadnik was elected from among boyars for an unspecified time period, and
acted as mayor of the city. Commoners were represented by the tysiatskii who
originally commanded the militia, but was now mainly involved in the organ-
isation of trade, as well as in commercial adjudication and taxation. From the
1150s onwards the archbishop of Novgorod ceased to be appointed by the met-
ropolitan of Kiev but was elected from the local clergy. The archbishop was
not only the leader of the church but also the highest political representative
of the community. The community invited the prince to lead the army and
administer justice. However, if there was a conflict between the community
and the prince, the former could expel the latter. This accounts for the some-
times extremely frequent changes of prince in the town.
To the west of Novgorod was the small territory of Pskov, which still man-
aged to play a key role in Livonia’s history. It consisted of a rather narrow land
strip along the eastern coast of Narva River and Lake Peipus, and the Velikaya
River basin in the south. Water bodies and poorly settled areas formed a divi-
sion between Pskov and the Livonian lands. However, it was the main, more
than 300 kilometers long frontier of medieval Livonia against Rus’ where sev-
eral border conflicts occurred, especially during the 14th–15th centuries. The
governmental system of Pskov was similar to that of Novgorod.
To the west of Smolensk between the Daugava and the Dniepr rivers lay the
region of Polotsk-Vitebsk. Polotsk emerged as a centre of Scandinavian chief-
tains where in the late 10th century a branch of the Riurikid family secured its
rule. After its cultural and economival heyday in the second half of the 11th
century, Polotsk split into smaller principalities by the end of the 12th century.
A significant role among them played Vitebsk (see p. 78). The principalities of
Ryazan and Pereiaslav bordered on the steppes in the south-east. Despite the
fact that in this work the term Rus’ is used to refer to the entire eastern Slavonic
18 Introduction

world from Halych to Vladimir and from Novgorod to Ryazan, far from con-
stituting a political unity, this area was extremely heterogeneous in political,
ethnic, and even religious terms throughout this period.
From 1236 to 1242 Rus’ was conquered by the Mongols, apart from Novgorod,
Pskov, Smolensk, and Polotsk. Novgorod and Smolensk were forced to pay the
Mongols tribute sometime later but only for a short time and as the very conse-
quence of the policies of the Russian princes. During the 1250s a relationship of
interdependency between the Russian princes and their Mongol rulers devel-
oped in which particular importance was assumed by the rivalry between the
Russian princes to secure the title of grand prince of Vladimir and to obtain the
accompanying patent from the Khan, the iarlyk. The princes of north-eastern
Rus’ (Suzdal and Pereiaslav, and later Moscow) and Tver (principality detached
from Pereiaslav in the 1240s) competed for this honour. In western Rus’ the
influence of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania spread quickly from the second half
of the 13th century. The pagan dynasty of Lithuania began to control politically
a conglomerate of Rus’ lands which simultaneously preserved some degree of
autonomy and often also the local rule of its traditional Riurikid princely fam-
ily. Thus various branches of the Russian ruling house, various princes, and
various centres of power fought in defence of their own interests. The histo-
riographical tradition that regards the formation of a central power stretch-
ing across this area as a strength and an objective pursued by the historical
development of Rus’ did not emerge until much later on. Although the region
belonged together by virtue of historical tradition, ecclesiastical organization,
literary language, and culture, almost exactly the same can be said of Catholic
Europe and it did not develop into a single unitary state. Even the dialects of
Old Russian reveal quite major differences, much greater than the written
variants.47
Rus’, Livonia, and Catholic Europe were thus anything but unified entities in
the 13th century. This aspect has far too often been neglected in historical stud-
ies to date. The aim of this work, in contrast, is to investigate these questions,
above all based on the relationships between local and regional powers. It was
these specific relationships that ultimately shaped the relations between Latin
Europe as a whole and Rus’ as a whole, and between Catholicism and Russian
Orthodoxy, not vice versa. It thus transpires that the decisive roles were played
not by the popes, emperors, or other individuals at the top of the hierarchy in
faraway countries, but by the people taking decisions locally and able to take
account of local requirements and conditions. This is not to say that Livonia

47  
See Andrej A. Zalizniak, Древненовгородский диалект (Moscow, 1995) (Язык.
Семиотика. Культура), pp. 3–5.
Introduction 19

and its closest neighbours in Rus’ can be dealt with completely in isolation
from wider European developments. During certain periods Livonian politics
was linked to a greater or lesser extent with the areas to the north and south of
it, with western Rus’, Poland, and Prussia, not to mention influenced by rela-
tions between the Finnish and Swedish regions and Novgorod. At least this
should be assumed as a starting point. In investigating these actual links and
those taken for granted in the historiography, and parallel developments, this
work will also have to touch upon, without going into detail, specific issues in
the history of south-western Rus’ and Karelia, particularly as they relate to the
period from the 1230s to the 1250s. It is nevertheless hoped that these occa-
sional and unavoidable digressions will not detract from the main thrust of the
narrative: the relations between the different powers on the ground.
 chapter 1

The Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the

Twelfth Century

1.1 The Schism and the Russian Church

Two different Christian confessions faced one another in the conflicts that
took place in and over Livonia in the 13th century: the Roman Catholic church
of the crusaders, vassals, merchants, and ecclesiastics who had come from
the West, and the Russian Orthodox church. According to the conventional
view, the division between the Latin and Greek churches was the result of the
mutual excommunication each imposed on the other’s hierarchy in 1054. It is
precisely in this acrimonious context, it is argued, that the history of the Baltic
region in the 12th and 13th centuries must be seen. The flagship date of 1054 is
one of those, however, that did not actually acquire its symbolic significance
as a historical turning point until much later, namely in the 19th century. The
doctrinal and liturgical differences between the Eastern and Western churches
together with the accusations of heresy on both sides were already present
earlier on in the Middle Ages. Yet these differences were not in any case what
caused the split: the reasons behind the schism and how it became entrenched
were mainly political in nature. Nor was there any indication in the mid-11th
century that the rift would be lasting. The church of Rome never gave up its
aim of bringing the Greeks under papal authority. While the crusades served
to intensify contact between the different Christian communities, the ensu-
ing political conflict was dressed in religious tones. As far as the deterioration
in the relations between the Eastern and the Western churches is concerned,
the turning point is seen as the Second Crusade (1147–54), which ended to
the West’s disadvantage. Perhaps it became more difficult to consider one
another as fellow Christians just at the moment when Byzantium made peace
with the Seljuks, who had, after all, defeated the crusaders, and just when
the Catholic king Roger II of Sicily (1105–54) fought alongside Muslim Egypt
against Byzantium. Any chance of reconciliation was thwarted once and for all
when Constantinople was conquered in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade. This
was when the difference in faith undoubtedly became the symbol of political
conflict. Even though most of the Greek clergy continued in their positions
after the foundation of the Latin Empire, they did not accept the election of a
Latin patriarch of Constantinople, Thomas Morosini (elected 1204), after the

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004284753_003

Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 21

death of the previous patriarch John Kamateros in 1206. The bishops who fled
to Nicaea elected the Orthodox patriarch Michael Autoreianos (1208–14) in
1208, who was also recognized by the Russian church. Rome’s attempts to over-
come the split and bring the Greek ‘schismatics’ under its authority continued
unabated: the curia in any case considered that the Greek church was already
subject to the Roman obedience as a result of the events of 1204.1 According
to Georgii Avvakumov, what was at issue in the 12th and 13th centuries was an
ambivalence on the part of Catholic theologians even to recognize the Eastern
church as a Christian one combined with “Rome’s political practice of ‘tolerant
non-recognition’ ”.2
The relations between Rome and Constantinople and/or Nicaea were
in turn reflected in the relations between the Latin church and the regional
Orthodox churches. Political causes can be identified even in the conclusion
and collapse of ecclesiastical unions with some of these churches. The relevant
treaties were not even agreed with the spiritual, but with the secular rulers.
Thus in 1204 Innocent III sent a royal crown to the Bulgarian ruler Kaloyan
(1197–1207) and Honorius III sent one to the Serbian ruler Stefan Nemanjić
(d. 1228) instead of discussing the union with the relevant church hierarchies.
Both of these ecclesiastical ‘unions’ fell apart extremely quickly, however; in
the case of the Serbs, almost immediately.3
Just as in the history of the Byzantine mother church, there is no consensus
in the history of the Russian Orthodox church about when the schism began
to take effect and become an important factor in those areas of eastern Europe
where the different faiths came into contact. It has been argued the Latin faith-
ful were considered schismatics by Rus’ as early as the 11th and 12th centuries.4
Yet there are counter-examples suggesting the opposite. There are episodes in
Old Russian literature in which the Russians (i.e. the Orthodox) and the Latins
form a common front against the pagans.5 The author of the original text of the

1  Axel Bayer, Spaltung der Christenheit. Das sogenannte Morgenländische Schisma von 1054
(Cologne-Weimar-Vienna, 2002) (Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 53); The Fourth
Crusade Revisited, ed. Pierantonio Piatti (Vatican City, 2008) (Atti e documenti 25).
2  Georgij Avvakumov, “Das Verhältnis zwischen Ost- und Westkirche in der mittelalterlichen
Theologie,” Münchener Theologische Zeitschrift 57 (2006), 54.
3  Günter Prinzing, “Das Papsttum und der orthodox geprägte Südosten Europas 1180–1216,” in
Das Papsttum in der Welt des 12. Jahrhunderts, ed. Ernst-Dieter Hehl et al. (Stuttgart, 2002)
(Mittelalter-Forschungen 6), pp. 137–83; Floria, У истоков, pp. 40–119.
4  Thomas S. Noonan, “Medieval Russia, the Mongols, and the West: Novgorod’s Relations with
the Baltic, 1100–1350,” Mediaeval Studies 37 (1975), 319–20.
5  Andreas Kappeler, “Ethnische Abgrenzung: Bemerkungen zur ostslavischen Terminologie
des Mittelalters,” in Geschichte Altrusslands in der Begriffswelt ihrer Quellen. Festschrift zum 70.
22 chapter 1

Old Russian Hypatian Chronicle, who came from western Rus’, clearly regarded
the German emperor and those of his men who fell in the Third Crusade as
holy martyrs who had fought in the name of the Lord, for their corpses were
taken from their graves by an angel on the third day.6 On the other hand, the
very same chronicle for the same period relates how the armies of Catholic
Hungary, described as the opponents of Christian nations, desecrated the
Orthodox churches of Galicia.7 Attitudes depended very much on individual
circumstances: there were no rigid ideological positions.
When the Kievan prince Vladimir Sviatoslavich (d. 1015) adopted Christianity
from Byzantium in 988, by no means the entire region under his dominion
was baptized. The Christianization of Rus’ took several centuries and was still
far from complete in the 13th century. A number of pagan tribes also inhab-
ited the lands ruled by Russian princes. Pagan shrines existed side by side
with Christian churches even as late as the 13th century, not only in the non-
Slavonic periphery, but also in many purely Russian areas. Not until after the
Mongol invasions was the word крестьяне introduced, meaning ‘people of
Christ’, to describe the Russian villagers.8 To grasp the schism and its doctrinal
causes and fundamentals ordinary people would need a reasonable knowl-
edge of Christianity and a basic level of education. But, with the exception of
the clergy, this could hardly be expected of a population at Europe’s periph-
ery, where there were still few Christian institutions, and given such slow and
haphazard internal Christianization. It follows therefore that any anti-Roman
polemical literature produced by the Russian church was not of local origin.
Such literature borrows from Byzantine models and was propagated in Rus’ by
the Kievan metropolitans of Greek origin and by the clergy in their entourage.
In the 13th century this type of literature virtually disappeared from the Old
Russian tradition altogether, coinciding as it did with the continuing decline

Geburtstag von Günther Stökl, ed. Uwe Halbach et al. (Stuttgart, 1986) (Quellen und Studien
zur Geschichte des östlichen Europa 26), p. 127.
6  Ипатьевская летопись, ed. Boris M. Kloss et al. (Moscow, 1998) (PSRL 2), pp. 667–68. See also
Aleksandr V. Nazarenko, Древняя Русь на международных путях. Междисциплинарные
очерки культурных, торговых, политических связей IХ–ХII веков (Moscow, 2001) (Studia
historica), pp. 617–48.
7  Ипатьевская летопись, p. 665.
8  Irina P. Rusanova and Boris A. Timoshchuk, “Религиозное “двоеверие” на Руси в XI–XIII
вв. (по материалам городищ-святилищ),” in Культура славян и Русь. Сборник посвящен
90-летию со дня рождения академика Борис А. Рыбакова, ed. Iurii S. Kukushkin et al.
(Moscow, 1998), pp. 161–62; Igor N. Danilevskii, Древняя Русь глазами современников и
потомков (IX–XII вв.). Курс лекций (Moscow, 1998), pp. 217–26; cf. pp. 259–63.
Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 23

in ecclesiastical relations between Byzantium and Rus’.9 The attempts of the

Greek ecclesiastical hierarchy to incite ill-feeling towards the Catholics in Rus’
as well clearly did not find a receptive audience in the 11th and 12th ­centuries.10
The sources drawn upon in the historiography to illustrate an attitude of intol-
erance can also occasionally be interpreted in a different way. Moreover, it must
be questioned to what extent the medieval legal codes often cited as evidence
of hostility actually reflect everyday life in the first place. For example, the
extended version of the Old Russian ‘Church Statute of Iaroslav’ (Устав князя
Ярослава о церковных судах) from the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries for-
bids, under threat of punishment, eating and drinking with non-­Christians
and those of other faiths or with foreigners.11 Such decrees originated in early
Christian literature. It is not clear whether the Russian clerics who worked on
their redaction understood those of other faiths and non-Christians to include
other Christians as well or just Muslims and pagans.12 Feodosii (d. 1074), one of
the founders of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra (Monastery of the Caves), described

9   See Andrei Popov, Историко-литературный обзор древне-русских полемических

сочинений против латинян (XI–XV в.) (Moscow, 1875); Gerhard Podskalsky, Christentum
und theologische Literatur in der Kiever Rus’ (988–1237) (Munich, 1982), pp. 170–85; Igor S.
Chichurov, “Схизма 1054 г. и антилатинская полемика в Киеве (середина XI–начало
XII в.),” Russia mediaevalis 9/1 (1997), 43–53. For the Byzantine context, see John Fennell,
A History of the Russian Church to 1448 (London-New York, 1995); Aleksei V. Barmin,
“Греко-латинская полемика XI–XII вв. (опыт сравнительного рассмотрения и
классификации),” in Византийские очерки. Труды российских ученых к XIX
международному конгрессу византинистов. Посвящается академику Геннадию Г.
Литаврину в честь его 70-летия (Moscow, 1996), pp. 101–15.
10  Iaroslav N. Shchapov, Государство и церковь Древней Руси X–XIII вв. (Moscow, 1989),
pp. 169–72; Floria, У истоков, pp. 11–14. See also Ludolf Müller, “Das Bild vom Deutschen
in der Kiever Rus’,” in Deutsche und Deutschland aus russischer Sicht. 11.–17. Jahrhundert,
ed. Dagmar Herrmann (Munich, 1988) (West-östliche Spiegelungen, Reihe B 1), pp. 51–82.
11  “с некрещенымъ, или иноязычникомъ”: Древнерусские княжеские уставы XI–XV вв.,
ed. Iaroslav N. Shchapov (Moscow, 1976), p. 89, para. 49, p. 98, para. 52 (quotation), p. 209.
12  Iaroslav N. Shchapov, Княжеские уставы и церковь в Древней Руси XI–XIV вв. (Moscow,
1972), pp. 256–57; cf. Henryk Paszkiewicz, The Origin of Russia (London, 1954), p. 96; idem,
The Making of the Russian Nation (London, 1963), pp. 33–35; Anna L. Khoroshkevich, “Из
истории русско-немецких отношений XIII в.,” in Исторические записки 78 (1965),
220–21. Danilevskii, Древняя Русь, pp. 173–81 and Danilevskii, Русские земли, pp. 40–42
give examples that illustrate how russkii (and its written variants) can signify, depending
on the context, either the region of Kiev-Chernigov, the peoples whose written language
is Old Church Slavonic (or Orthodox believers as a whole), or, in some cases, the Christian
countries of western Europe as well (or even the Polovtsians).
24 chapter 1

the horrible deeds of Latin believers in his epistle to Prince Iziaslav Iaroslavich
(d. 1078). They

do not hold the right beliefs and do not live purely: they eat with cats and
dogs, drink their own piss, eat turtles and wild horses and donkeys and
anything that has been strangled, and carrion and bear flesh and beavers
and beaver tail in Lent.

Yet even this epistle, although hardly likely to have had a significant influ-
ence on contemporaries, was motivated by political concerns, namely Prince
Iziaslav’s use, in 1069, of Polish forces to help defeat his opponents in Kiev.13
Moreover, writings hostile to Catholicism focused less on doctrinal differences
than differences in custom.
The proposition that the reality of the religious frontier should not be exag-
gerated is also supported by the fact that the Russian church celebrated saints
and feast days either not recognized by Byzantium or even initially viewed with
hostility. An example of this was the Feast of the Translation of the Relics of
St Nicholas on 9 May. This reliquary was brought from Myra (modern Demre,
Turkey), which had been plundered by the Seljuks, to Bari in southern Italy in
1087. Since, as far as the Greeks were concerned, this meant that the relics had
been stolen, there is no way in which the Russian church could possibly have
adopted this feast day from Byzantium.14
If it can be argued that it took centuries for the schism to become part of
the general consciousness even in the countries of the Mediterranean, this
must surely apply even more so as regards its impact on religious differences
and their perception in north-eastern Europe. Northern Europe as a whole was
still a politically and culturally integrated area in the 11th century, regardless
of religious denomination. Nor did the contacts established through dynastic
relations and trade break down after the mid-11th century when the schism
occurred. Some scholars have gone so far as to suggest that there was even
a mission from Byzantium and Rus’ to Sweden, specifically Uppland, in the

13  Igor P. Eremin, “Литературное наследие Феодосия Печерского,” in Труды Отдела

древне-русской литературы Института литературы АН СССР 5 (1947), 159–62,
quoted from p. 170–71. The letter’s date and authorship are far from settled; it has also been
suggested that its author is actually a 12th-century monk known as Feodosii the Greek. See
Viktor Aleksandrov, “То же и с латины: Запрет браков с католиками у православных
славян в средние века,” Studia Slavica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 47 (2002),
102–03. Feodosii’s anti-Catholic accusations belong within the Greek tradition. Iziaslav’s
mother was Swedish and his wife of Polish descent.
14  Shchapov, Государство, p. 172.
Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 25

11th century.15 The archaeological finds of artefacts with Byzantine influences

would seem to point not so much to a mission from Byzantium to Sweden,
however, than to the high regard in which Byzantium was held in Scandinavian
society and the symbolic value of objects from its material culture. In other
words, people who otherwise observed Catholic rituals saw nothing contradic-
tory in using objects from the cultural sphere of the Eastern church.16
The Varangians and their successors for their part transmitted what might
be loosely termed ‘Catholic’ influence to Rus’, above all in the nearby Novgorod
area. There was still a certain ‘common denominator’ between Scandinavian
and Old Russian ecclesiastical culture in the 12th century.17 Its most striking
example was the cult of a Catholic saint in Novgorod, that of the Norwegian
king Olaf the Holy (d. 1030). Many of the miracles worked by the saint took
place in Rus’ according to his vita. It is noteworthy that most of these mirac-
ulous deeds affected Novgorod’s native population.18 A spiritual text written
in Rus’ sometime in the middle of the 12th century mentions a whole series
of martyrs and saints from the Roman Catholic world, mostly Scandinavians
such as Magnus Erlendsson (d. 1115), Knud the Holy and his brother Benedict
(d. 1086), Alban (3rd century), Olaf, and Botulf (d. 680).19 Scandinavia’s

15  John H. Lind, “Darkness in the East? Scandinavian Scholars on the Question of Eastern
Influence in Scandinavia during the Viking Age and Early Middle Ages,” in From Goths to
Varangians. Communication and Cultural Exchange between the Baltic and the Black Sea
ed. Line Bjerg et al. (Aarhus, 2013) (Black Sea Studies 15), pp. 341–67.
16  Wladyslaw Duczko, “Byzantine Presence in Viking Age Sweden. Archaeological Finds
and their Interpretation,” in Rom und Byzanz im Norden. Mission und Glaubenswechsel
im Ostseeraum während des 8.–14. Jahrhunderts ed. Michael Müller-Wille, vol. 1 (Mainz-
Stuttgart, 1997) (Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Abhandlungen der
geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Klasse Jg. 1997, 3/1), p. 309.
17  Elena A. Melnikova, “Русско-скандинавские взаимосвязи в процессе христианизации
(IХ–ХIII вв.),” in DG 1987 год, 1989, pp. 260–68; Nazarenko, Древняя Русь, pp. 585–616;
Ildar H. Garipzanov, “The Cult of St. Nicholas in the Early Christian North (c. 1000–1150),”
Scandinavian Journal of History 35 (2010), 229–46.
18  Elena Melnikova, “The Cult of St. Olaf in Novgorod,” in Sagas and the Norwegian
Experience. 10th International Saga Conference Trondheim, 3–9 August 1997 (Trondheim,
1997), pp. 453–60; Galina V. Glazyrina, Tatiana N. Dzhakson and Elena A. Melnikova,
“Скандинавские источники,” in Древняя Русь в свете зарубежных источников, ed.
Elena A. Melnikova (Moscow, 1999), pp. 553–56; Tatjana N. Jackson, “The Cult of St Olaf
and Early Novgorod,” in Saints and Their Lives on the Periphery. Veneration of Saints in
Scandinavia and Eastern Europe (c.1000–1200), ed. Haki Thor Antonsson (Turnhout, 2010)
(Cursor mundi 9), pp. 147–70.
19  John H. Lind, “The Martyria of Odense and a Twelfth-Century Russian Prayer: The
Question of Bohemian Influence on Russian Religious Literature,” The Slavonic and
East European Review 68 (1990), 1–21; Fedor B. Uspenskii, Скандинавы, варяги, Русь.
26 chapter 1

influence (and its rivalry) may also be discerned in the fact that from 1148 at
the latest some Orthodox bishops of Novgorod occasionally used the title of
archbishop, unusual in Rus’, and which even became obligatory for the leaders
of the Novgorod church from the second third of the 13th century.20
In the middle of the 12th century Bishop Nifont of Novgorod (1131–56), along
with other Orthodox ecclesiastics, replied to a number of questions posed by
the Novgorod deacon Kirik. These answers reflect religious practices and throw
light on everyday life in the Novgorod church at the time. In response to the
question about what ought to be done when someone baptized in the Latin
faith wanted to come “to us” (к намь) comes the reply that one should treat
the ‘church changer’ in the same way as a neophyte: he must be rubbed with
ointment, but rebaptism was not required.21 There had been cases in Novgorod
in which parents had taken their children to a “priest from Scandinavia”
(к варяжкомоу попоу). This was punished by a six-week penance usually in
the form of a fast.22
The supposed displeasure felt by Novgorodians towards Catholicism is
recounted by the Russian archaeologist and historian Elena Rybina, citing the
legend of the construction of a Catholic church in Novgorod. The city’s posad-
nik, Dobrynia, was miraculously punished when he gave the Latins permission
to build their own church (ропата)—despite opposition from the bishop and
the people—and, to make room for the site, even had the Orthodox Church
of John the Baptist moved elsewhere: a gust of wind threw him from his boat,
causing him to drown in the river Volkhov. The story is full of rhetoric against
the Latins and their culture. Yet even if part of the pro-Moscow text from

Историко-филологические очерки (Moscow, 2002) (Studia philologica), pp. 115–31.

A different view is put forward by Herman Kølln, “Zur Allerheiligenlitanei im altrus-
sischen Dreifaltigkeitsgebet,” Scando-Slavica 42 (1996), 77–89.
20  Shchapov, Государство, pp. 62–69. The view held by some scholars that the title of arch-
bishop was introduced in Novgorod in 1165 is erroneous.
21  Памятники древне-русского канонического права, part 1 (памятники ХI–ХV в.), 2nd
ed. (St Petersburg, 1908) (Русская историческая библиотека 6), pp. 26–27, para. 10. See
also Podskalsky, Christentum, pp. 187–91. In the 13th century the Greeks were accused by
the Latins of not recognizing Latin baptism and forcing converts to be baptized again. See
Dekrete der ökumenischen Konzilien, ed. Josef Wohlmuth, vol. 2: Konzilien des Mittelalters
(Paderborn-Munich-Vienna-Zürich, 2000), pp. 235–36, para. 4 (Fourth Lateran Council
of 1215); Anna-Dorothee von den Brincken, Die ‘Nationes christianorum orientalium’ im
Verständnis der lateinischen Historiographie von der Mitte des 12. bis in die zweite Häfte des
14. Jahrhunderts (Cologne-Vienna, 1973) (Kölner historische Abhandlungen 22), p. 25.
22  Памятники древне-русского канонического права, p. 60, para. 16.
Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 27

around the end of the 15th century might reflect events from the 12th century,
the difficulties in dating alone make this an unreliable source: the posadnik
Dobrynia died in 1117, but the Scandinavian Church of St Olaf in Novgorod is
supposed to have been built much earlier, before the 12th century, while the
foundation of the German trading enclave in Novgorod has been dated much
later to 1192.23
Many historians have therefore drawn attention to the intense rivalry
between the Catholic and Orthodox churches in the 12th century, which is also
said to manifest itself in political developments or even the language found in
the sources.24 However, the material available does not allow us to draw this
conclusion with absolute certainty.25 While there is indeed much to suggest
that the once integrated Scandinavian and Russian world was breaking up at
the end of the 12th century, there is no reason to see such disintegration as
tantamount to the erection of cultural or political barriers. On the contrary, the
absence of a clear distinction between the Catholic and the Orthodox worlds
would be a more accurate description of the Baltic region at the end of the
12th century. Some ecclesiastical texts might have been antagonistic, but their
effect on society, on everyday behaviour and attitudes, and on the political
course of events was evidently extremely slight.26

23  Rybina, Торговля, pp. 168–73 and 331–37; Anna L. Choroschkiewitsch, “Nowgorodisch-
warägische Beziehungen der ersten Hälfte des 11. Jahrhunderts nach Angaben von rus-
sischen Urkunden,” in Stadtwerdung und städtische Typologie des Ostseegebietes bis zur
Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts, ed. Julia-K. Büthe and Thomas Riis (Odense, 1999) (Studien zur
Geschichte des Ostseeraumes 3; OUS 204), pp. 30–31; Vladimir Vodoff, “Un pamphlet anti-
latin à Novgorod au XVe siècle?” Revue des Études slaves 70 (1998), 299–307.
24  Noonan, “Medieval Russia,” pp. 332–33 (Noonan’s argument on this point is based
on the 14th and 15th centuries and cannot in fact be applied to the earlier period);
Ēvalds Mugurēvičs, “Die Verbreitung des Christentums in Lettland vom 11. Jahrhundert
bis zum Anfang des 13. Jahrhunderts,” in Rom und Byzanz im Norden. Mission und
Glaubenswechsel im Ostseeraum während des 8.–14. Jahrhunderts, ed. Michael Müller-
Wille, vol. 2 (Mainz-Stuttgart, 1997) (Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur,
Abhandlungen der geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Klasse Jg. 1997, 3/2), p. 81. Cf.
Lind, “Martyria,” pp. 20–21; Elena L. Koniavskaia, “Литва в восприятии русских (на
материале древнерусских литературных памятников ХIV века),” in Древняя Русь и
Запад. Научная конференция. Книга резюме, ed. Vladimir M. Kirillin (Moscow, 1996),
pp. 92–95.
25  Kappeler, “Ethnische Abgrenzung,” pp. 128–33.
26  Cf. Evgenii Golubinskii, История Русской церкви, vol. 1/2 (Moscow, 1904), p. 805;
Shchapov, Княжеские уставы, pp. 256–57.
28 chapter 1

1.2 Relations between the Russian Principalities and their

Western Neighbours

The key players in the Baltic crusades came principally from northern Germany
and Scandinavia and probably knew little of Rus’. They would likely have
formed their own idea of it as they made their way along the eastern Baltic
coast. Rus’ was generally seen as a distant, strange, unknown, and unruly land
in contemporary German literature.27 Ruthenia was a common term used for
Rus’ in European geography,28 although the word could equally stand for the
entire eastern Baltic coast or a much larger area. When the English chronicler
Matthew Paris (d. 1259) told of the death of King Valdemar II of Denmark (1241),
he added that the king had conquered Frisia et Ruscia, where he had founded
six or seven bishoprics.29 The name of the island of Rügen must have also
caused confusion. At the time it was under Danish sovereignty and the terms
Russia and Rugia were used interchangeably for both territories.30 Eastern

27  Michail Sverdlov, “Nachrichten über die Ruś in der deutschen historischen Überlieferung
des 9.–13. Jh.,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte der sozialistischen Länder Europas 19 (1975), 167–82;
Pavel N. Berkov, “Das ‘russische Thema’ in der mittelhochdeutschen Literatur,” Zeitschrift
für Slawistik 21 (1976), 297–310; Mechtild Keller, “Konturen: Die Darstellung der Ostslawen
in Chroniken und Annalen des 9.–13. Jahrhunderts,” in Russen und Rußland aus deutscher
Sicht. 9.–17. Jahrhundert, ed. Mechtild Keller (Munich, 1985) (West-östliche Spiegelungen
Reihe A 1), pp. 57–83; eadem, “Perspektiven: Vorstellungen von ‘Riuzen’ in der deutschen
Literatur des Mittelalters,” in eadem, Russen und Rußland aus deutscher Sicht, pp. 84–109;
Richard F. M. Byrn, “National Stereotypes Reflected in German Literature,” in Concepts of
National Identity in the Middle Ages, ed. Simon Forde et al. (Leeds, 1995) (Leeds Texts and
Monographs, new series, 14), pp. 143, 150.
28  Brincken, Nationes, pp. 142–46. For an inventory of references to Rus’ in Western chroni-
cles, see Stéphane Mund, “Constitution et diffusion d’un savoir occidental sur le monde
‘russe’ au Moyen Âge (fin Xe–milieu XVe siècle),” Le Moyen Age 110 (2004), 275–314, 539–93.
29  Matthaei Parisiensis, monachi sancti Albani, Chronica majora, ed. Henry R. Luard,
vols. 1–7 (London, 1872–1883) (Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores or Chronicles
and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages [57/1–7]), here vol. 5,
p. 193; cf. vol. 4, pp. 92–93, 109. For Matthew, the regions of Frisia, Sithia, and Gothia lay
somewhere in eastern Europe. He relates that the Mongol threat meant that no one
from Gothia and Frisia appeared in Yarmouth in 1238 to buy herring (Matthaei Chronica,
vol. 3, p. 488). Cf. Vernadsky, Mongols, pp. 53–54, who identified these lands with Novgorod.
‘Frisians’ in Matthew could also be a general description for the merchants trading east-
ern goods in the north; cf. for example HCL XIV.3, p. 74. Valdemar’s power also extended
to Frisia. Six or seven fits in rather well the number of Livonian bishoprics.
30  See Natalia I. Shchaveleva, “Древнерусские известия Великопольской хроники,”
in Летописи и хроники 1976 г. (Moscow, 1976), pp. 64–65; Nazarenko, Древняя Русь,
pp. 11–50.
Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 29

Europe, particularly Rus’, played an important role in Old Norse l­iterature.31

The issue of religious differences seems to have been completely secondary
in these texts. For example, the 12th-century chronicle of Magdeburg in its
account of the crusade against the Wends in 1147 relates that, in addition to
Polish fighters, the Russians—“although less Catholic, still Christian men”—
had also taken up arms against the pagan Old Prussians.32
The Holstein-based chronicler Helmold of Bosau (d. after 1177) speculated
that it had been the Greeks who had converted the Russians to Christianity
based on the fact that Rus’ was not far from Greece.33 Chroniclers also believed
that the western European and Russian nobility had common ancestors.34
When in 1193 King Philip II Augustus of France (1180–1223) married Ingeborg
(d. c. 1237), the daughter of King Valdemar I of Denmark (d. 1182), only to
demand a divorce after a few months, the marriage was defended by William
(d. 1203), the French abbot of the Danish monastery of Æbelholt. One of his
arguments was that Ingeborg’s mother, also the mother of King Knud VI
(d. 1202), was of extremely high birth: she was the daughter of a Russian prince
and her brothers continued to govern in Rus’.35 There are instances of Russian
princes mentioned as guests at European courts.36 Where central Europe is
concerned, it is more likely that they came from Galicia or Kiev. Art historians

31  See Glazyrina, Dzhakson and Melnikova, “Скандинавские источники,” pp. 408–562.
32  Annales Magdeburgenses, ed. Georg Pertz, in MGH SS, vol. 16 (Hanover, 1859), p. 188: “licet
minus catholici tamen christiani nominis karacterem habentes”. See also Aleksandr V.
Nazarenko, “Западноевропейские источники,” in Древняя Русь в свете зарубежных
источников, ed. Elena A. Melnikova (Moscow, 1999), p. 390.
33  Helmold of Bosau, Slawenchronik, ed. Heinz Stoob (Darmstadt, 1963) (Ausgewählte Quellen
zur Deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters. Freiherr-von-Stein-Gedächtnisausgabe 19), I.1,
pp. 34, 36.
34  Albrici monachi Trium Fontium Chronica a monacho Novi Monasterii Hoiensis interpolata,
ed. Paul Scheffer-Boichorst, in MGH SS, vol. 23 (Hanover, 1874), pp. 737, 756; cf. Arnoldi
abbatis Lubecensis chronica, ed. Johannes M. Lappenberg, in MGH SS, vol. 21 (Hanover,
1868), pp. 100–250, V.9, p. 122; Kurt Forstreuter, Preußen und Rußland von den Anfängen des
Deutschen Ordens bis zu Peter dem Großen (Göttingen-Berlin-Frankfurt, 1955) (Göttinger
Bausteine zur Geschichtswissenschaft 23), p. 34.
35  “Wilhelmi abbatis genealogia regum Danorum ab Ingeburgis reginae francorum causam
defendenam conscripta,” in Scriptores minores historiae Danicae medii aevi, ed. Martin Cl.
Gertz, vol. 1 (Copenhagen, 1970), pp. 184–85.
36  A certain regulus Ruthenorum was staying in Vienna in 1165. According to Lindner, this was
Prince Iaroslav Vladimirovich of Galicia (d. 1187), who might have recognized Emperor
Frederick I (1152–90) as his feudal lord. See Michael Lindner, “Ein regulus Ruthenorum am
Hofe Kaiser Friedrich Barbarossas. Das Wiener Dreikönigetreffen des Jahres 1165 und die
‘Ostpolitik’ des Staufers,” ZfO 50 (2001), 337–69). Cf. Winter, Russland, pp. 66–67; Widera,
“Die politischen Beziehungen,” pp. 33–36, 57–85.
30 chapter 1

have, moreover, detected a western European influence on Galician art dating

from before the Mongol invasions, but also on the art of Vladimir and Suzdal.
These were transmitted via Polish, Hungarian, German, and Lombard master
builders working in Russian dominions.37 The Laurentian Chronicle, when
praising the local Bishop Ivan, even noted under the year 1194 that a church
in Suzdal had been rebuilt exclusively using home-grown labour, without
“German” help.38 There was thus considerable contact in both directions dur-
ing this period.
The relationship of north-western Rus’ with its northern Catholic neigh-
bours was also portrayed in contradictory terms in the Russian sources. These
neighbours included the “nemcy” (немцы). This term did not refer just to eth-
nic Germans; in Old Russian literature the word can refer to any people of the
Roman faith in central and western Europe, although mostly to the Germanic
peoples.39 In the Novgorod Chronicle the term not only refers to the popula-
tions of Livonia and Germany in the 13th and 14th centuries, for example, but
also to the Swedes in particular. It is unclear to what extent this was a pejorative
expression. The Danish historian John Lind has argued that the replacement
of the earlier term for Scandinavians, “variagi” (варяги), by немцы should be
seen as an expression of religious hostility.40 It is true that the Varangians are
mentioned by name for the last time in the First Novgorod Chronicle at the

37  Iurii A. Limonov, Владимиро-Суздальская Русь. Очерки социально-политической

истории (Leningrad, 1987), p. 190; Oleg Ioannisyan, “Between Byzantium and the
Romanesque West: The Architecture of Old Rus’ in the 10th–13th Centuries,” in Müller-
Wille, Rom und Byzanz im Norden, vol. 2, pp. 297–323; Aleksandr V. Nazarenko, “Русско-
немецкие связи домонгольского времени (IХ–середина ХIII вв.): состояние
проблемы и перспективы дальнейших исследований,” in Из истории русской
культуры, vol. 2 book 1: Киевская и Московская Русь, ed. A. F. Litvina and Fedor B.
Uspenskii (Moscow, 2002), p. 276; Lindner, “Regulus,” pp. 359–60.
38  Лаврентьевская летопись, ed. Boris M. Kloss et al. (Moscow, 1997) (PSRL 1), p. 411.
39  Kappeler, “Ethnische Abgrenzung,” pp. 126–27; cf. Bernhard Dircks, “Krieg und Frieden
mit Livland (12.–15. Jahrhundert),” in Herrmann, Deutsche und Deutschland aus russischer
Sicht, p. 129.
40  Lind, “Martyria,” p. 21. See John H. Lind, “Consequences of the Baltic Crusades in Target
Areas: The Case of Karelia,” in Murray, Crusade and Conversion, pp. 137–42; John H. Lind,
“Scandinavian Nemtsy and Repaganized Russians. The Expansion of the Latin West dur-
ing the Baltic Crusades and its Confessional Repercussions,” in The Crusades and the
Military Orders. Expanding the Frontiers of Medieval Latin Christianity, ed. Zsolt Hunyadi
and József Laszlovsky (Budapest, 2001), pp. 481–93, where it is stressed that the original
meaning of the word nemcy was ‘followers of the Latin or non-vernacular liturgical lan-
guage’. Yet Lind also concedes in the same article (p. 497) that the word could be used in
a neutral way in the 13th century despite its supposed etymology.
Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 31

beginning of the 13th century; but the “Germans” are mentioned in connection
with military clashes in Livonia and then for the first time in Novgorod in 1232
as grain merchants. The word немцы is used to designate the Swedes from the
end of the 13th century. In relation to events outside of Novgorod’s immedi-
ate vicinity, use is also made of the term “Latins” (латиняне).41 On the other
hand, it has also been argued that the terminology of the Novgorod Chronicle
was, overall, far from derogatory towards Germans and Western nations during
the early 13th century.42 According to the American scholar Thomas Noonan
(1938–2001), the word ‘Christian’ in the Russian sources is a synonym for
‘Russian’, the latter being used in contrast to foreigners. As far as animosity
towards Catholics is concerned, however, his evidence43 is not entirely con-
vincing. The material actually draws an opposition between Christian Russians
and pagans (e.g. Lithuanians and Mongols) or even describes the “spilling of
Christian blood” among the Russians themselves.44
Scholars have repeatedly drawn attention to Novgorod’s buoyant cultural
relations with the West at the end of the 12th century, which allegedly became
weaker later on or were broken off following the propagation of anti-Rus’

41  NL1, p. 45 (trade conflict with Varangians, 1201/6709); pp. 48–49 (‘Varangians’ as body-
guard of the Byzantine emperor, 1204/6712); p. 57 (Varangian church in Novgorod burnt
together with goods, 1217/6725); p. 183 (a punished slave flees to the Germans, 1058/6566);
p. 46 (the German emperor is mentioned, 1204/6712); p. 49 (the Latin emperor will gov-
ern in Constantinople, 1204/6712); pp. 59–66 (Germans mentioned in connection with
events in Livonia 1219–22/6727–36); p. 71 (Germans supply grain during a famine in
Novgorod, 1232/6739); p. 325 (Swedish military campaign in Ladoga, 1283–84/6791–92);
p. 361 (the Latin church service is introduced in Volhynia, 1349/6857). NL1, p. 39 both
Germans and Varangians are mentioned in connection with the conflict of 1188/6696.
It is not clear whether Gotland or German merchants are being referred to or both. See
Detlef Kattinger, Die Gotländische Genossenschaft. Der frühhansisch-gotländische Handel
in Nord- und Westeuropa (Cologne-Weimar-Vienna, 1999) (Quellen und Darstellungen
zur hansischen Geschichte N.F. 47), pp. 146, 149; Paszkiewicz, Making, pp. 44–47; Elena
A. Rybina, “Über den Novgoroder Handelsvertrag des ausgehenden 12. Jahrhunderts,” in
Visby-colloquium des Hansischen Geschichtsvereins 15.–18. Juni 1984, ed. Klaus Friedland
(Cologne-Vienna, 1987) (Quellen und Darstellungen zur hansischen Geschichte N.F. 32), p.
127; Anna Choroškevič, “Der Ostseehandel und der deutsch-russisch-gotländische Vertrag
1191/1192,” in Der hansische Sonderweg? Beiträge zur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte der
Hanse, ed. Stuart Jenks and Michael North (Cologne-Weimar-Vienna, 1993) (Quellen und
Darstellungen zur hansischen Geschichte N.F. 39), pp. 6–7.
42  Kappeler, “Ethnische Abgrenzung,” pp. 133–34.
43  Noonan, “Medieval Russia,” p. 331; cf. pp. 323–25.
44  Noonan, “Medieval Russia,” pp. 334–35; cf. Kappeler, “Ethnische Abgrenzung,” p. 135.
32 chapter 1

c­ rusading ideology in the Baltic region.45 When dating this rift it is assumed
that the events of the first half of the 13th century represented a crucial turn-
ing point in the emergence of a hostile relationship. This would first have to
be demonstrated, however, given that the sources could just as well be inter-
preted in the opposite sense. For example, in the account of the conquest of
Constantinople by the crusaders, which the Novgorod Chronicle enters under
the year 1204, the pope is actually portrayed more as a positive figure, who
together with the “German emperor” tried to prevent the pillaging of the city
and its holy sites. To blame were the Greeks themselves, who could not agree
with one another, and the crusaders’ avaricious military leaders.46
The main region from which information about Rus’ reached the heart of
Europe was not northern Europe, but Galicia and Volhynia. The principal con-
duits of knowledge of and attitudes towards Rus’ were Poland and Hungary.
These adjacent regions formed a common culture in the Middle Ages in politi-
cal terms.47 Indeed, it is precisely in the Polish tradition that Rus’ is seen as

45  Duczko, “Byzantine Presence,” p. 297; Dietrich Wörn, “Die politischen und kulturellen
Beziehungen Rußlands zum Westen im ausgehenden 12. und beginnenden 13. Jahrhundert
und ihre Bedeutung für die Kulturentwicklung des vormongolischen Rußlands,” in
Slavistische Studien zum IX. internationalen Slavistenkongress in Kiev 1983, ed. Reinhold
Olesch (Cologne-Vienna, 1983) (Slavistische Forschungen 40), pp. 647–48.
46  NL1, pp. 46–49. The incorporation of the narrative in the Novgorod Chronicle may have
been at the initiative Archbishop Antonii of Novgorod (1210–19, 1225–28), who himself
visited Constantinople c. 1200. On the textual history, see Gippius, “К характеристике,”
pp. 358–359; cf. Timberlake, “Older and Younger Recensions,” pp. 22–27; Svetlana I.
Luchickaia, “Четвертый крестовый поход глазами русского современника,”
in Византийский временник 65 (2006), 107–25. Antonii wrote a description of
Constantinople’s sacred sites, the younger version of which refers to the conquest of the
city by the Latins. It has not been established when these references were incorporated
into the text since the extant manuscripts date from a later period (16th–18th centuries).
The author warns Christians of the importance of unity. See Книга Паломник. Сказание
мест Святых во Цареграде Антония архиепископа Новгородского в 1200 году, ed.
Khrysanf M. Loparev (St Petersburg; 1899) [Православный Палестинский Сборник,
17/3 (51)], pp. 1, 13–15.
47  Gotthold Rhode, Die Ostgrenze Polens. Politische Entwicklung, kulturelle Bedeutung und
geistige Auswirkung, vol. 1 (Cologne-Graz, 1955) (Ostmitteleuropa in Vergangenheit
und Gegenwart 2), pp. 91, 132–65; Nazarenko, “Русско-немецкие связи”; Martha Font,
“Hungaro-Kievan Political Ties and Cultural Relations during the 12th Century,” Specimina
nova dissertationum ex instituto historico universitatis Quinqueecclesiensis, vol. 12 (1996,
1998), 139–49; Márta Font, “On the Frontiers of West and East: The Hungarian Kingdom
and the Galician Principality between the 11th and 13th Centuries,” Annual of Medieval
Studies at CEU 6 (2000), 171–80.
Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 33

the heterodox enemy. The most important source in this context is the verse
epistle sent by Bishop Matthew of Krakow (1143–66) to Bernard of Clairvaux
(d. 1153).48 In the letter he calls the Russians false believers. They were not
Catholics but only pretended to honour Christ, and their church had noth-
ing in common with the Latin or the Greek churches nor did it share their
sacrament. He is obviously referring here to the Slavonic church service. The
epistle also urges the famous abbot to visit Ruthenia, Poland, and Bohemia. It
may be the case that the Polish prelate did indeed regard Rus’ as a different,
insincere country, but it is also possible to detect a political motive. The let-
ter’s co-author is referred to as comes Petrus, in other words the palatine Piotr
Włostowicz (d. c. 1151), who was married to a Russian princess. When he briefly
fell into disgrace in 1145, he spent some time in Russian exile.49 At the same
time (1142–43 and 1145), the Polish prince Władysław II (d. 1159) was fighting
against his half-brother with support from the army of Grand Prince Vsevolod
Olgovich of Kiev (d. 1146). This Russian alliance was cause of widespread dis-
satisfaction among the Polish clergy and led the archbishop of Gniezno to
excommunicate Władysław II in 1146. The latter was defeated and banished,
one of the accusations against him being his alliance with the schismatics
against the Latins.50 The letter from Bishop Matthew and Piotr Włostowicz,
who were both opposed to Władysław, must therefore be seen in the context
of these events in Poland.
The chronicler and bishop of Krakow, Wincenty Kadłubek (d. 1223),
described the Polish military campaign of Prince Vladimir Iaroslavich (d. 1199),
who had come to power in Galicia in 1187–88, as a succession of profanities,
beginning with the rape of virgins and ending with the murder of clerics per-
forming mass at the altar. He was thus offering the reader a standard selection
of impious deeds committed by the enemy.51 Prince Vladimir, however, was

48  Natalia I. Shchaveleva, Польские латиноязычные средневековые источники (тексты,

перевод, комментарий) (Moscow, 1990) (Древнейшие источники по истории народов
СССР), pp. 158–62.
49  Ипатьевская летопись, p. 319.
50  Shchaveleva, Польские латиноязычные средневековые источники, p. 157; Nazarenko,
“Западноевропейские источники,” pp. 388–90; Teresa Dunin-Wąsowicz, “Projets mis-
sionaires cisterciens dans la Rus’ du sud-ouest aux XIIe–XIIIe siècles,” Harvard Ukrainian
Studies 12–13 (1988–1989), 533–35; Marian Dygo, “A Letter from Matthew, a Bishop of
Cracow, to Bernard of Clairvaux ‘On the Conversion of Russians’ (1145?),” in Rome,
Constantinople and Newly-Converted Europe. Archaeological and Historical Evidence, ed.
Maciej Salamon et al., vol. 1 (Krakow, 2012), pp. 203–13.
51  Wincentego zwanego Kadłubkiem Kronika Polska, ed. Marian Plezia (Krakow, 1994)
(Pomniki dziejowe Polski, 2nd Series, 11), IV.15, pp. 159–60. Cf. for example Arnoldi ­abbatis
34 chapter 1

actually acting in concert with the Hungarian king. Wincenty expressed partic-
ularly strong reservations about Prince Roman Mstislavich, who ascended to
the Galician throne in 1199 with the help of Leszek the White (d. 1227), prince
of Sandomierz and Krakow. Although he was initially described “as the con-
stant helper and quasi carer” of Polish princes, relations deteriorated and in
the account of Roman’s death in his 1205 campaign against the Polish princes,
Wincenty remarks with irony that this was a belated thanks.52 In his universal
chronicle the Cistercian Alberic de Trois-Fontaines (d. after 1252), in the prov-
ince of Champagne, in addition described Roman—indeed following a Polish
view—sicut falsus christianus: his death had been Saxony’s good fortune, for he
had been planning to advance with his army that far.53
Just as in Poland, where clerical writers incorporated religious arguments
into the political conflict despite the shared ‘political space’ with western Rus’,
one comes across two traditions in the Russian sources: the judgmental lit-
erary tradition and the everyday one, in which religious differences are not
­prominent.54 The Galician-Volhynian Chronicle mentions that Elisabeth of
Hungary (1207–31) “dedicated much time to serving God after the death of her
husband and was considered a saint”.55 This patron of the Teutonic Order was
canonized in 1235 and her mention in the Russian chronicle shows that the
idea that a Catholic could be holy was still not questioned in Galicia in the
mid-13th century. News of Elisabeth’s deeds reached western Rus’ precisely

Lubecensis chronica, ed. Johannes M. Lappenberg, in MGH SS, vol. 21 (Hanover, 1868),
II.11, p. 133; Peter von Dusburg, Chronicon terrae Prussiae, ed. Max Toeppen, in SRP, vol. 1,
III.343, p. 187; Симеоновская летопись, ed. Aleksandr E. Presniakov (St Petersburg, 1913)
(PSRL 18), p. 78; Aufzeichnungen Albrechts von Bardowik vom Jahre 1298, in Die Chroniken
der niedersächsischen Städte. Lübeck, vol. 2, ed. Karl Koppmann (Leipzig, 1899) (Die
Chroniken der deutschen Städte vom 14. bis ins 16. Jahrhundert 26), pp. 314–15.
52  Wincentego Kronika, IV.24, pp. 183–86: “qui huius rei publice semper coadiutor et quidam
quasi pedagogus”; cf. Kronika Wielkopolska, ed. Brygida Kürbis (Warsaw, 1970) (Pomniki
dziejowe Polski, 2nd Series, 8), pp. 71–73, para. 48. Kadłubek’s narrative unfortunately
stops before Roman’s death. See also Ioannis Długossi annales seu cronicae incliti regni
Poloniae, ed. Danuta Turkowska et al., 5 vols. (Warsaw, 1964–78), vol. 3, pp. 192–97 (1205).
53  Albrici Chronica, pp. 885, 921. It has been debated whether Roman was allied with the
pretenders to the imperial throne and the pope. One of the arguments cited in support
are the references to a large donation by Roman to a monastery in Erfurt. See Nazarenko,
Русско-немецкие связи, p. 269. Cf. Aleksandr V. Maiorov, “Поход Романа Мстиславича
1205 года: в Саксонию или в Польшу?,” in Вопросы истории 2008, 11, pp. 36–48.
54  Andrei V. Kuzmin, “Образ Польши и поляков в древнерусских источниках (до начала
ХIV века),” in Kirillin, Древняя Русь и Запад, pp. 88–91.
55  Ипатьевская летопись, p. 723. Elisabeth’s death and canonization are mentioned in a
number of Polish sources.
Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 35

because she was a native Hungarian and therefore had close dynastic relations
with both Polish and west Russian princes.
Another means linking Rus’ with Catholic Europe was through marriage.
The branches of the Russian Riurikid ruling house were closely intertwined
through dynastic marriage with ruling European families, particularly Poland
and Scandinavia, in the 11th and 12th centuries. This was despite the injunc-
tion pronounced by the Greek metropolitans of Kiev against matrimonial ties
between the different faiths and especially against giving daughters in mar-
riage to husbands of the Latin faith.56 Such ties were not confined solely to the
princely caste but in the borderlands could also be found at other social levels.57
They were most frequent in the frontier region between Poland and Rus’. At
least fifteen marriages between the Riurikid and Piast dynasties are recorded
in the period from 1140 to 1305;58 the rulers of Galicia, Volhynia, and Masovia
had particularly close ties. The western Riurikids were also related to Hungary.
A rough estimate calculates that Russian princes married into the dynasties
of Catholic Europe five times more often than they did with Byzantine rulers
and four times more often than with the ruling families of the nomadic steppe
peoples.59 Duke Swantepolk of Pomerania (d. 1266) was given the sister of
Prince Daniil Romanovich in marriage, while Daniil’s brother Vasilko ­married

56  These regulations are based on Greek precedents. See Aleksandrov, “То же и с латины”,
101–13.
57  See Fennell, History, pp. 97–101; Nazarenko, Древняя Русь, pp. 559–84; Paszkiewicz,
Origin, pp. 101–02. For genealogical tables, see Nicolas de Baumgarten, Généalogies et
mariages occidentaux des Rurikides Russes du Xe au XIIIe siècle (Rome; 1927) (Orientalia
christiana 9/1 no. 35); Julius Forssman, Die Beziehungen altrussischer Fürstengeschlechter
zu Westeuropa. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte Ost- und Nordeuropas im Mittelalter (Bern, 1970).
58  Rhode, Ostgrenze, pp. 136–37.
59  Wörn, “Die politischen und kulturellen Beziehungen,” p. 637. The following Polish princes
were married to Russian princesses: Bolesław III the Wrymouth (d. 1138); Bolesław IV
the Curly (d. 1173); Mieszko III the Old (d. 1202); Casimir the Just (d. 1194); the son of
King Andrew II of Hungary (d. 1235), Andrew (d. 1234), married the daughter of Mstislav
Mstislavich the Bold (d. 1228); in 1207 Leszek the White of Krakow and Sandomierz
(d. 1227) married the daughter of Ingvar Iaroslavich of Lutsk (d. after 1212); Conrad of
Masovia (d. 1247) married c. 1209 the daughter of Sviatoslav Igorevich of Novgorod-
Siverskyi (d. c. 1211); Bolesław I of Sandomierz (d. 1248) married c. 1243 the daughter of
Aleksandr Vsevolodovich of Belz (d. after 1234); in 1248 Siemowit I of Masovia (d. 1262)
married the daughter of Daniil Romanovich of Galicia (d. c. 1264); in 1265 Leszek the Black
of Kujawy (d. 1288) married the daughter of the ban of Mačva, Rostislav Mikhailovich
(d. 1264). Piast princesses were married to Iaroslav Sviatopolkovich of Volhynia (d. 1123),
Volodar Glebovich of Minsk (12th century), Grand Prince Mstislav of Kiev (d. 1170),
Vsevolod Sviatoslavich of Chernigov (d. c. 1215), and Iurii Lvovich of Galicia (d. c. 1308).
36 chapter 1

the daughter of Prince Leszek the White of Krakow and Sandomierz. The wife
of Daniil’s son Lev was the daughter of King Béla IV; Daniil’s son Roman was
married for a time to the Austrian duchess Gertrude (d. 1288); and Daniil gave
his daughter to Duke Siemowit of Masovia (d. 1262) in marriage. Great value
was placed on the ruler’s political status when contracting marriage, not sur-
prisingly given that dynastic marriage was, after all, a purely political act. In
the 13th and 14th centuries marriages along similar lines were also contracted
between the rulers of the pagan Lithuanians and both their Catholic and
Orthodox neighbours precisely because these dynastic ties proved to be politi-
cally expedient.
Another region that stands out for its dense network of dynastic relations
is that formed by northern Rus’ and Scandinavia. In contrast to south-western
Rus’, however, the contacts here declined in importance during this period.
The apparent cause of this was not the incipient hostility between the faiths
but rather the increasingly intense cultural and economic interconnections
between northern and central Europe which gradually overshadowed the ties
with Rus’. The son of Grand Prince Vladimir Monomakh (d. 1125), Mstislav
(Harald, d. 1132), was given the daughter of King Inge of Sweden (d. c. 1100)
in marriage, while the daughters born of this marriage were in turn sent to
Scandinavia to be married: Malmfred (d. after 1137) became the wife of King
Sigurd of Norway (d. 1130) and, when he died, she married King Erik Emune
of Denmark (d. 1137); Ingeborg was given in marriage to Erik Emune’s half-
brother, Duke Knud Lavard (d. 1131). Their son became King Valdemar I the
Great of Denmark, who, according to the Knýtlinga saga (written in the sec-
ond half of the 13th century), was born in Rus’ and spent his early childhood
in Novgorod. He was given his name in honour of his grandfather Vladimir.60
In 1154 Valdemar I himself married the Russian princess Sophia (d. 1198), the
daughter of Prince Volodar Glebovich of Minsk.61 Sophia’s mother, the daugh-
ter of Duke Bolesław III of Poland, was married three times: first with the mur-
derer of Duke Knud Lavard, Magnus Nielsen (d. 1134), then with Volodar—this
marriage was subsequently nullified—and lastly with King Sverker I of Sweden
(d. 1155). Such close dynastic relationships, which dated back to the Viking

60  Danakonunga sögur. Sjöldunga saga, Knýtlinga saga ágrip af sögu Danakonunga, ed.
Bjarni Guþnason (Reykjavík; 1982) (Íslenzk fornrit 35), p. 256, para. 93; Ex historia regum
Danorum dicta Knytlingasaga, ed. Finnur Jónsson, in MGH SS, vol. 29 (Hanover, 1892),
p. 298, para. 93; Lind, “Martyria,” p. 16.
61  Tatiana N. Dzhakson, “Исландские королевские саги как источник по истории
Древней Руси и ее соседей Х–ХIII вв.,” in DG 1988–1989 годы, 1991, p. 163; Lind, “Martyria,”
pp. 16–18.
Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 37

Age, broke down in the middle of the 12th century. As is known, the relation-
ship between Valdemar I and Sophia was the last Russian and Scandinavian
royal marriage, and its origins lay much more in internal Danish politics than
anything else.62
Merchants from Catholic countries also visited Rus’. In the story Der guote
Gêrhart by Rudolf von Ems from the first half of the 13th century foreign voy-
ages to Rus’, Livonia, Prussia, Damascus, and Nineveh are mentioned as exotic
and successful trade journeys.63 An important trade route was from Kiev,
either via towns in Hungary and Austria, or Krakow and Prague, to Germany,
especially Regensburg, one of the most important centres of overland trade
with Russian territories. In Kiev there may have been several Latin churches
with trading enclaves.64
The trade naturally involved travel by merchants. The often marshy terrain
and long distances between settelments made the waterways important. The
Viking-Age route ‘from the Varangians to the Greeks’ connected the Baltic Sea,
where the island of Gotland was the centre of the transportation and trade
networks, with both inland Russian territories and the Black and Caspian Seas
along the major rivers of the Neva, Volkhov, Lovat, Daugava, and Dniepr.
In the north the main goods exported by Rus’ were furs (primarily s­ quirrel)
and wax. Western imports consisted of cloth, salt, wine, luxury goods, and
silver. Local exports from the areas of Estonia and Latvia might also include
iron extracted from bog ore and possibly grain too. Changes in the system of
trade in this period are indicated by the fact that the number of hoards from
the second half of the 12th century is relatively small in this region but starts
to grow in the last decades of the century, indicating direct commercial links
with Gotland and Westphalia by that time. The active party in this trade, i.e.
the person actually travelling, was probably the Western merchant.
Scandinavian-Russian relations in the Baltic during the Viking Age and
subsequently65 were inherited by the emerging Hanseatic centres of trade
thanks to trade with Gotland. As a result of the recent foundation of Lübeck by

62  John Lind, “De russiske ægteskaber. Dynasti- og alliancepolitik i 1130’ernes Danske borger-
krig,” Historisk Tidsskrift 92/2 (1992), 262–263; Lind, “Martyria,” pp. 20–21.
63  Rudolf von Ems, Der guote Gêrhart, ed. John A. Asher (Tübingen, 1989) (Altdeutsche
Textbibliothek 56), lines 1191–1200, pp. 41–42: “mit mînem guote ich kêrte/ hin über mer
gên Riuzen,/ ze Liflant und ze Priuzen,/ dâ ich vil manigen zobel vant./ von dannen fuor
ich gên Sarant/ ze Damascô, ze Ninivê.”
64  Nazarenko, “Западноевропейские источники,” pp. 378–84; Nazarenko, “Русско-
немецкие связи,” p. 274.
65  Tatjana N. Jackson, “Novgorod the Great in Baltic Trade before 1300,” Acta Borealia 25
(2008), 83–92.
38 chapter 1

Duke Henry the Lion (d. 1195) in 1159, German merchants obtained the first and
for a long time only harbour along the Baltic Sea. According to the chronicle
of Helmold of Bosau, when Henry the Lion founded the city he sent ambas-
sadors to the neighbouring towns and countries, including Rus’, promising to
grant them freedom of trade.66 He granted the Gotlanders the privilege of free
trade with Lübeck in 1161. Trade with the Russians is mentioned in the virtually
contemporary privilege, fragments of which have survived in later documents,
granted by Henry the Lion to the city of Lübeck.67 The first treaty between
German merchants and Novgorod is also likely to have been concluded under
Henry. It has been suggested that the earliest extant treaty between Novgorod
and the “Germans, Goths [Gotlanders] and the entire Latin people”, dating
from 1191/92,68 was the natural development of this previous treaty of Henry
the Lion and the hypothetical treaty from the early 11th century between the
prince of Novgorod and his Varangian entourage.69 The treaty of 1191/92 was
preceded by a conflict between the merchants of Gotland and Novgorod. The
Russians responded to the repression of the Novgorodians on Gotland by
imposing the first known trade embargo in the Baltic region, prohibiting their
merchants from travelling to Gotland. At the same time, the ‘Varangians’ were
expelled from the country.70 The embargo later became a customary means of
applying pressure in relations between the Hanseatic League and Novgorod.

66  Helmold [of Bosau], Slawenchronik, I.86, p. 304.

67  LübUB 1, no. 7; Walter Rennkamp, Studien zum deutsch-russischen Handel bis zum Ende
des 13. Jahrhunderts: Nowgorod und Dünagebiet (Bochum, 1977) (Bochumer historische
Studien. Mittelalterliche Geschichte 2), pp. 30–49, 53–55.
68  GVNP, no. 28; NA, p. 81, no. 1. The treaty guarantees mutual freedom of trade and sets out
the criminal code applicable to foreigners.
69  Rennkamp, Studien, pp. 49–58; Kattinger, Gotländische Genossenschaft, pp. 113–14;
Choroškevič, “Ostseehandel,” pp. 9–12; Choroschkiewitsch, “Nowgorodisch-warägische
Beziehungen,” pp. 30–31; Anna L. Khoroshkevich, “О происхождении текста древнейших
новгородско-готландско-немецких договоров конца ХII и середины ХIII в.,” in NIS 6
(16) (1997), 130–31.
70  NL1, pp. 39, 229: “Въ то же лето рубоша новгородьце Варязи на Гътехъ, Немьце въ
Хоружьку и въ Новотържьце”. Historians have interpreted the account in completely
different ways. See Rybina, “Über den Novgoroder Handelsvertrag,” pp. 126–28; Rybina,
Торговля, pp. 100–03, 299; Kattinger, Gotländische Genossenschaft, pp. 145–46; Valentin
L. Ianin and Elena A. Rybina, “Новгородская берестяная почта 2004 года,” in Вестник
Российской академии наук 75 (2005), 336. Cf. Igor P. Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси против
крестоносной агрессии на берегах Балтики в ХII–ХIII вв. (Leningrad, 1978), pp. 101–05;
Dzhon Lind, “Загадочная статья Новгородской первой летописи. Что случилось в
1188 году?” in Архив русской истории 4 (1994), 191–205. Cf. Blomkvist, The Discovery of
the Baltic, pp. 441–64.
Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 39

Not only Scandinavia and Lübeck traded with the Russians in the Baltic
region. As early as 1165 the archbishop of Cologne, Rainald (d. 1167), granted
the town of Medebach in Westphalia—home to a succession of Livonian
crusaders—a privilege referring to the trade in Datia uel Rucia.71 Indeed,
Westphalia was the main region, apart from Saxony, whose towns developed
increasingly close commercial ties with Russian territories from the 12th cen-
tury. The region could be reached by ship via the Baltic Sea, connecting it
with Novgorod, Pskov, Polotsk, and Smolensk. Scandinavian and German
merchants visited trading enclaves or so-called merchants’ churches in some
of these towns.72 These included the ‘churches of the Varangians’ previously
mentioned. Archaeological evidence indicates that St Olaf’s Church in the
Gotlanders’ enclave in Novgorod had been built mostly by the beginning of
the 12th century at the latest; it is already mentioned in the second half of the
11th century in runic inscriptions in Uppland.73 It may have been founded in
the second third of the 11th century when Scandinavian warriors were continu-
ally in the service of the prince of Novgorod. The trading enclave presumably
developed out of the church’s location.74
At the end of the 12th century, apparently immediately after the treaty
of 1192 had been agreed, a second Catholic church together with its trad-
ing enclave was built in Novgorod, St Peter’s Church patronised by German
­merchants.75 Yet a third foreign church in Novgorod is named in the 1260s.
The Gotlanders had sold it and it no longer appears in later sources.76 Apart

71  DD 1/2, no. 166.

72  The concept of the merchants’ church developed by Paul Johansen is not entirely uncon-
troversial, however.
73  Elena A. Melnikova, Скандинавские рунические надписи. Новые находки и
интерпретации. Тексты, перевод, комментарий (Moscow, 2001) (Древнейшие
источники по истории Восточной Европы), pp. 338–39, 485, no. 7.29. The reading is
entirely speculative.
74  Glazyrina, Dzhakson and Melnikova, “Скандинавские источники,” pp. 537–44; cf.
Choroschkiewitsch, “Nowgorodisch-warägische Beziehungen,” pp. 30–31. The church is
mentioned repeatedly in the Novgorod Chronicle for the 12th–14th centuries; see NL1,
p. 686.
75  On Novgorod’s trading enclaves, see Rybina, Торговля, pp. 168–225. Cf. Kattinger,
Gotländische Genossenschaft, p. 149. The date is taken from the late Third Novgorod
Chronicle. See “Летописец Новгородский церквам Божим,” in Новгородские летописи,
ed. Afanasii F. Bychkov (St Petersburg, 1879), p. 194.
76  Paul Johansen, “Die Kaufmannskirche,” in Die Zeit der Stadtgründung im Ostseeraum
(Visby, 1965) (Acta Visbyensia 1), pp. 86–93; Rybina, Торговля, pp. 174–78; Oleg M.
Iоаnnisian, “Архитектура Древней Руси и средневековой Скандинавии. Их
взаимосвязи,” in Изучение и реставрация памятников древнерусской архитектуры
40 chapter 1

from the merchants, there were priests at both of these churches. In Smolensk
the Latin Church of St Mary’s, whose ostensible remains have been studied by
archaeologists, and the German trading enclave are mentioned in the sources
for the first time in 1229. The German trading community had lost the right
of ownership to the church by the end of the 14th century for reasons that
are obscure. German merchants later built enclaves in Vitebsk and Polotsk as
well.77 Commercial relations were certainly not confined just to the Russian
regions close to the Baltic. Livonia and Scandinavia took part in trade in the
13th century with areas as far east as Suzdal.78
One of the preconditions for the exchange of goods is personal contact,
which in turn serves to reinforce that trade. Later on in the period young
merchants from the Hanseatic cities spent time living in Rus’ to learn the lan-
guage.79 Some German and Scandinavian merchants probably moved their
permanent residence to one of the Russian towns,80 without the difference in
religious confession thereby proving an obstacle.
In the historiography of Baltic trade it is argued that Russian merchants
became actively involved in trade in the 12th century. They undertook inde-
pendent journeys to Gotland and the Baltic’s southern coast, probably above
all in the second half of the century:81 An account of Novgorod merchants

и монументального искусства, ed. Аleksandr М. Gordin and Оleg М. Ioannisian

(St Petersburg, 2007) (Труды Государственного Эрмитажа 34), pp. 99–135. Another
Latin church is mentioned in Ladoga in 1268. See Denis G. Khrustalev, “О системе
готских дворов в Новгородской земле в ХII–ХIII вв.,” in Denis G. Khrustalev, Северные
крестоносцы. Русь в борьбе за сферы влияния в Восточной Прибалтике ХII–ХIII вв.,
vol. 2 (St Petersburg, 2009), pp. 298–304.
77  Leopold K. Goetz, Deutsch-Russische Handelsgeschichte des Mittelalters (Lübeck, 1922)
(Hansische Geschichtsquellen N.F. 5), pp. 507–08; Rennkamp, Studien, pp. 244–45;
Nikolai N. Voronin and Pavel A. Rappoport, Зодчество Смоленска ХII–ХIII вв. (Leningrad,
1979), pp. 140–50.
78  Paul Johansen, “Novgorod und die Hanse,” in Städtewesen und Bürgertum als geschichtli-
che Kräfte. Gedächtnisschrift für Fritz Rörig, ed. Ahasver von Brandt and Wilhelm Koppe
(Lübeck, 1953), p. 133; Limonov, Владимиро-Суздальская Русь, pp. 189–91. See also
Nazarenko, Древняя Русь, p. 616.
79  Johansen, “Novgorod,” pp. 138–39; Anti Selart, “Тайна купцов, забота дипломатов:
русский язык в средневековой Ливонии,” in Лотмановский сборник 4 (2014), 48–60.
80  Valentin Kiparsky, “Wer hat den Handelsvertrag zwischen Smolensk und Riga vom J. 1229
aufgesetzt?” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 61 (1960), 247.
81  Goetz, Deutsch-Russische Handelsgeschichte, pp. 21–26; Erich Hoffmann, “Die Anfänge
des deutschen Handels im Ostseeraum,” in Die Hanse und der deutsche Osten, ed. Norbert
Angermann (Lüneburg, 1990), pp. 5–7; Nazarenko, “Западноевропейские источники,”
pp. 385–387; Kattinger, Gotländische Genossenschaft, pp. 115–17, 168.
Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 41

returning from Gotland and Denmark can be found in the Novgorod Chronicle
for the year 1130.82 Novgorod merchants were arrested or had their goods con-
fiscated in Denmark in 1134.83 In 1157, when the Danish heir to the throne,
Svend Grathe (d. 1157), conquered Schleswig, he also took possession of the
Russian ships and goods docked in the harbour.84 In 1204 King Valdemar II
of Denmark confirmed Lübeck’s privileges, among which was the privilege of
1188 from Emperor Frederick I granting “the Russians, Goths, Normans, and
other eastern peoples” the freedom to visit Lübeck.85 In the 1220s Russians
and Livs are mentioned among the other eastern nations in Lübeck with the
right to trade in the city without paying customs.86 In the second half of the
12th century Russian merchants trading in the Baltic built several churches in
Novgorod.87 It can be concluded from the extensive building work there that
the third quarter of the 12th century was a thriving period for Novgorod’s for-
eign trade. It has been argued that one of the causes of this growth was these
legal regulations on trade in the Baltic.88 The Russians also had ‘merchants’
churches’ abroad, two presumed to be on Gotland (Novgorod and Polotsk or
Smolensk churches?) and one in Sigtuna.89

82  NL1, p. 22.

83  NL1, pp. 22–23 under the year 6642: “Томь же лете рубоша новгородць за морем въ
Дони.”
84  Saxonis Gesta Danorum, ed. Jørgen Olrik and Hans Ræder, vol. 1 (Copenhagen, 1931),
p. 399, Lib. XIV, para. 17.1; Blomkvist, The Discovery of the Baltic, p. 439.
85  DD 1/7, no. 331, para. 15; LübUB 1, no. 7. On the history of the forgery, see Erich Hoffmann,
“Lübeck im Hoch- und Spätmittelalter: Die Große Zeit Lübecks,” in Lübeckische Geschichte,
ed. Antjekathrin Grassmann (Lübeck, 1997), pp. 116–17.
86  LübUB 1, no. 32: “Nullus civis de Zwerin theloneat Lubeke; sic nec rutenus . . . nec livo, sic
neque omnes gentes orientales.”
87  NL1, pp. 30, 216–17; NL1, pp. 31–32; cf. p. 181; Choroškevič, “Ostseehandel,” p. 3; Elena A.
Rybina, “Einige Fragen der Beziehungen zwischen Novgorod und der Hanse,” in Beiträge
zur hansischen Kultur-, Verfassungs- und Schiffahrtsgeschichte, ed. Horst Wernicke
and Nils Jörn (Weimar, 1998) (Hansische Studien 10; Abhandlungen zur Handels- und
Sozialgeschichte 31), pp. 324–25. Rybina, Торговля, p. 279. See also Paweł A. Jeziorski,
“Fundacje cerkiewne świeckich nowogrodzian (od XI do XV wieku),” Zapiski Historyczne
68 (2003), 221–57.
88  Choroškevič, “Ostseehandel,” p. 3; Rybina, Торговля, pp. 99–100.
89  Johansen, “Kaufmannskirche,” pp. 98, 116–17; Hugo Yrwing, Visby—Hansestad på Gotland
(s.l. 1986), pp. 384–386; Melnikova, “Русско-скандинавские взаимосвязи,” pp. 265–66;
Sven-Erik Pernler, “Die Patrozinien Gotländischer Kirchen,” in Friedland, Visby-Colloquium,
pp. 101–02; Jonas Ros, Sigtuna. Staden, kyrkorna och den kyrkliga organisationen (Uppsala,
2001) (Occasional Papers in Archaeology 30), pp. 172–76, 269; Albina A. Medyntseva,
“Древнерусская надпись на крестике из Висбю (о. Готланд),” ­Scando-Slavica 40 (1994),
42 chapter 1

During the course of the 13th century the independent voyages made by
Russians westwards from Gotland became less frequent or even stopped
altogether. This decline is also reflected in the treaties with Novgorod agreed
during the second half of the 13th century in which, in contrast to earlier peri-
ods, only the journeys of Russian merchants as far as Gotland are mentioned.
The reasons for this change must be attributed to a structural shift in Baltic
trade. In the first place, the cog type of ship had a greater holding capacity
than the Novgorod ships thanks to its broad hull and was also more seaworthy.
Moreover, the harbour towns that had emerged in Livonia in the meantime
were ideal for reloading goods onto smaller ships, carts, and sledges, which
could then be transported inland by river or via land routes. The decrease in
active Russian trade did not result in a worse balance of trade, however. The
changing pattern in transportation simultaneously gave Livonian towns the
opportunity to thrive economically and to become stronger politically.90

1.3 The Crusades and the Schismatics

An extremely influential historiographical tradition sees Livonia’s military

clashes with Novgorod and Pskov as part of the crusading ‘movement’.91 This
movement’s ultimate aim throughout the 13th century was supposedly to con-
vert Russian territory to the Catholic faith or bring it under the control of the
Roman obedience, and thereby achieve the union of the churches. Countless
historians have considered it legitimate to regard all military operations along
Livonia’s borders against the Russians and Lithuanians as crusade or a series of
ongoing crusades lasting into the 16th century; in other words, as a war against

132–37; cf. Gunnar Svahnström, “Gotland zwischen Ost und West,” in Les pays du Nord et
Byzance (Scandinavie et Byzance), ed. Rudolf Zeitler (Uppsala, 1981) (Acta Universitatis
Upsaliensis. Figura Nova Series 19), pp. 441–67; Svetlana Ia. Vasileva, “Византийское
влияние в монументальной живописи второй половины XII в. острова Готланд,” in
Византийский временник 67 (2008), 217–33: Byzantine and Russian influence must also
be taken into account in the art and architecture of Catholic churches in 12th-century
Gotland.
90  Goetz, Deutsch-Russische Handelsgeschichte, pp. 26–27, 311; Paul Johansen, “Der hansische
Rußlandhandel, insbesondere nach Novgorod, in kritischer Betrachtung,” in Die Deutsche
Hanse als Mittler zwischen Ost und West, ed. Hermann Conrad (Cologne-Opladen, 1963)
(Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Forschung des Landes
Nordrhein-Westfalen 27), pp. 52–55; cf. Rybina, “Einige Fragen,” pp. 323–26.
91  Cf. Christopher Tyerman, The Invention of the Crusades (London, 1998), p. 4, in which the
author argues against this ‘anthropomorphic’ term.
Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 43

Latin Europe’s neighbours. But what does the term ‘crusade’ mean in the first
place? It did not originate in the Middle Ages. The extension of a term tradi-
tionally used in historical-writing to describe the military campaigns in the
Mediterranean region from the 11th to the 13th centuries to the eastern Baltic
is in fact a relatively recent development in historiography, as is the more in-
depth research into the late crusades of the 13th to 16th centuries.
The term ‘crusade’ can be defined for the 13th century with reference to
various criteria.92 A central characteristic was its authorization by the pope,
who granted approval for the preaching of a crusade in a particular area and
promised indulgences to those taking part. At the same time, different cru-
sades could be ranked according to their greater or lesser status. The most pres-
tigious were always those to the Holy Land. These set the standard by which
crusades against other enemies were measured. Thus the Baltic Crusades were
compared from the beginning to those to the Holy Land.93 Formulas for pro-
claiming a crusade came to include treating a war as equivalent to a crusade
in terms of the indulgence and papal protection it entailed or making a cru-
sade to some other destination equivalent to a crusade to Jerusalem as well as
obtaining papal approval to replace a crusading vow for the Holy Land with
one for elsewhere.94
There is nevertheless no clear legal definition of a crusade95 (or a historio-
graphical tradition for how to define one). It is equally impossible to draw up
a list of military campaigns that were crusades and a list of those that were
not. Not all papal calls to crusade were successful (e.g. the preaching of the
crusade against the Mongols from 1241 to 1249), and hence some crusades
(e.g. the wars of King Valdemar I of Denmark against the Wends in the 1160s)96
were not formally endorsed by the curia, even though they were compatible
with crusading ideology. What was decisive, therefore, even more so than
formal papal approval, was that the actual crusaders saw themselves as such
and were regarded as crusaders in their native lands. The crusade was not a
phenomenon that originated in frontier areas and the peripheries of western
Europe; rather, its roots lay in the societies of Europe’s core regions. Moreover,

92  For a summary, see Jonathan Riley-Smith, What were the Crusades?, 4th ed. (Basingstoke,
2009); Tyerman, Invention, pp. 1–7.
93  LUB 1, no. 14; HCL III.2, p. 12; XIX.7, p. 132.
94  For example, DD 1/5, no. 61.
95  On the crusades from the canon law perspective, see James A. Brundage, Medieval Canon
Law and the Crusader (Madison, 1969).
96  Ane L. Bysted et al., Jerusalem in the North. Denmark and the Baltic Crusades, 1100–1522
(Turnhout, 2012) (Outremer. Studies in the Crusades and the Latin East 1), pp. 76–81.
44 chapter 1

the crusades were neither based on a monolithic, unchanging ideology nor

were they a self-contained movement. They amalgamated holy warfare with a
number of spiritual rituals that preceded and accompanied the crusades.97 The
leading role in the conduct and justification of crusades on Europe’s periphery
was assumed by the local secular and spiritual rulers. The crusade as an institu-
tion existed in these areas merely as an expression of political and ecclesiasti-
cal aims and ideas, such as rulers’ ambitions, attempts at church reform, and
the desire for salvation. These ideas had elements in common with the Holy
War but the latter was not indispensable to them.
Crusades were carried out to free and protect Christians. Originally
Christians were to be freed from Muslim bondage in Palestine, the Iberian
peninsula, and North Africa. At the same time, however, Christians were also
to be protected from pagans, who could pose a danger to them in the form of
military incursions and raids for plunder. Even just their proximity could be
accepted as threatening. Regardless of who might actually undertake hostile
manoeuvres during a given season, however, warfare against the pagans was
conceived as a defensive war in itself.98 Precisely such a conception is drawn
upon when the crusades on the Daugava River started at the end of the 12th
century. According to the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, the initial aim was
to force the Livs to retain the Christianity to which they had voluntarily con-
verted and then to protect the Church from pagan incursions.99 It was in this
way that crusading ideology or terminology continually extended its scope
during the 13th century. The call to crusade (negotium crucis) extended to all
lands that recognized papal authority. The cross was preached against all ene-
mies, whether unbelievers (Muslims and pagans), schismatics (Greeks), her-
etics (Albigensians), rebels (Stedingers) or the pope’s political rivals, who were
regarded as destroying the unity of the Church.100
The far-reaching ambitions entailed by crusading endeavours inevitably led
to conflicts. This generally unfolded on the European fringes according to the
following pattern. In response to a ruler’s request, the pope issued approval
to preach a crusade for the planned undertaking. This in turn could lead to

97  Ernst-Dieter Hehl, “Was ist eigentlich ein Kreuzzug?” Historische Zeitschrift 259 (1994),
336, including an extensive bibliography.
98  Friedrich Lotter, “The Crusading Idea and the Conquest of the Region East of the Elbe,” in
Bartlett and MacKay, Medieval Frontier Societies, pp. 274–75, 288–89; Marek Tamm, “How
to Justify a Crusade? The Conquest of Livonia and New Crusade Rhetoric in the Early
Thirteenth Century,” Journal of Medieval History 39 (2013), 431–455.
99  HCL I.12, p. 7; II.3, p. 9; VI.4, p. 18; VII.1, p. 19; IX.8, pp. 29–30; XI.6, pp. 53–54 as examples.
100  Rebecca Rist, The Papacy and Crusading in Europe, 1198–1245 (London, 2009).
Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 45

competing crusades, not to mention the rivalry between the preachers them-
selves. In the second half of the 13th century this often translated into disagree-
ments between the Dominicans and Franciscans on the one hand, who were
the main propagators of the calls to crusade, and between them and the tradi-
tional monastic orders. There were also crusading preachers whose activities
had not been authorized by the pope.101
Since therefore in the 12th century the idea took shape that the various wars
against the pagans were part of one and the same war against Christianity’s
enemies, regardless of where they took place, the clashes with east European
pagans became equivalent to crusades. Although the crusades east of the Elbe
in 1147 did not at first achieve the hoped success, the Elbe Slavs were eventu-
ally subjugated during the subsequent decades through a combination of war
and dynastic politics. The conflicts of the Poles, Swedes, and Germans with the
pagan tribes of the Prussians, Livs, Lettgallians, Curonians, Finns, and Karelians
developed into crusades from the 12th and 13th centuries. Forced conversion to
Christianity also served the purpose of self-defence. It secured the borders—
even though this also meant shifting these towards new enemies—and pro-
tected the newly christened population from apostasy.102
In this context, the notion appears entirely plausible that crusades were
undertaken on Baltic soil not just against the pagans but also against the
schismatics—in other words, the Russians of Novgorod, Pskov, and Polotsk.
The papal diplomat and canonist Henry of Segusio (d. 1271) claimed that a war
against schismatics or rebels could even be more justified than one against the
Saracens since a key prerequisite for the latter was the unity of the Church.

101  Christoph T. Maier, Preaching the Crusades. Mendicant Friars and the Cross in the
Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, 1994) (Cambridge Studies in mMedieval Life and Thought
4th Series 28); Tyerman, Invention, pp. 41–49; Maureen Purcell, Papal Crusading Policy.
The Chief Instruments of Papal Crusading Policy and Crusade to the Holy Land from the
Final Loss of Jerusalem to the Fall of Acre 1244–1291 (Leiden, 1975) (Studies in the History of
Christian Thought 11), pp. 14–22. On unauthorized preaching of the crusade in the Baltic,
see Maier, Preaching, pp. 51–52; Anti Selart, “Die Bettelmönche im Ostseeraum zur Zeit
des Erzbischofs Albert Suerbeer von Riga (Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts),” Zeitschrift für
Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 56 (2007), 492–94.
102  Albert Bauer, “Der Livlandkreuzzug,” in Baltische Kirchengeschichte. Beiträge zur
Geschichte der Missionierung und der Reformation der evangelisch-lutherischen
Landeskirchen und des Volkskirchentums in den baltischen Landen, ed. Reinhard Wittram
(Göttingen, 1956), pp. 29–30; Berhard Stasiewski, “Missionsbestrebungen im Ostseeraum
im 13. Jahrhundert,” in Der Ostseeraum im Blickfeld der deutschen Geschichte, ed. Hermann
Conrad (Cologne-Vienna, 1970) (Studien zum Deutschtum im Osten 6), pp. 17–37. Cf.
Tyerman, Invention, pp. 8–29.
46 chapter 1

Furthermore, one could not force a pagan to adopt Christianity, but one could
very well use force to bring an apostate onto the right path.103 The historian
and crusade preacher Jacques de Vitry (d. 1240) stressed in a sermon for the mil-
itary orders that their task was to use the secular sword to defend the Church of
Jesus Christ, above all in war against non-Christians, i.e. the Saracens of Syria
and the Moors of Spain, the pagans of Prussia, Livonia and Cumania, and also,
when ordered by the authorities, against heretics and the Greek schismatics.104
In this way, arguments derived from the wars against the pagans were turned
against other Christians, who were accused of preventing the fight against the
Saracens105 or joining in alliance with them. This argument was used against
Byzantium from the beginning of the 12th century at the latest, albeit initially
in the language of secular rulers: the Greeks had prevented the war against
the unbelievers in the Holy Land. It was further extended by the idea, in the
wake of the failure of the Second Crusade, that it was necessary to wage war

103  Hehl, “Was ist eigentlich ein Kreuzzug?”, pp. 325–26. The canonist was not writing here
about the Greek Orthodox, however, but the pope’s enemies in Western Europe, who were
also deemed schismatics or heretics: “Quod si crux transmarina, quae pro acquisitione
seu recuperatione terrae sanctae tantummodo predicatur, videtur merito praedicanda,
multo fortius pro unitate ecclesiae conservanda praedicanda est crux contra schismaticos
cismarina” (cited according to Hehl, “Was ist eigentlich ein Kreuzzug?”, p. 325). Henry of
Segusio reports that this practice had not been approved in Alemania, i.e. the stress on the
need to fight against schismatics belongs in the context of the struggle with the emperor.
Catholic opponents could also be called infideles (unfaithful, unreliable, dishonest, unbe-
lievers) or schismatics [cf. Hans-Otto Gaethke, “Knud IV. und Valdemar II. von Dänemark
und Nordalbingen 1182–1227,” Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Schleswig-Holsteinische
Geschichte 120 (1995), 25–28]. See also Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades? pp. 17–22;
Norman Housley, “Crusades Against Christians: their Origins and Early Development,
c. 1000–1216,” in Crusade and Settlement, ed. Peter W. Edbury (Cardiff, 1985), pp. 17–36.
104  Analecta novissima spicilegii solesmensis altera continuatio, vol. 2, ed. Joannes Baptista
Pitra (Tusculanum, 1888), p. 405: “ad hoc igitur fratres ordinis militaris ordinati sunt, ut
Christi Ecclesiam gladio materiali defendant, maxime contra eos qui extra sunt, id est
contra Sarracenos in Syria, contra Mauros in Hispania, contra paganos in Prutia, Livonia
et Comania, et nihilominus de mandato superioris contra schismaticos in Graecia, et con-
tra haereticos ubique dispersos in universali Ecclesia . . . [among whom are also] fratres,
qui dicuntur militiae Christi in partibus Livoniae et Prutiae.”
105  Livonia’s pagan neighbours were occasionally also called ‘Saracens’. Not only the notion
of the holiness of such an auspicious war was taken from the Mediterranean countries,
but also its language. See Purcell, Papal Crusading Policy, pp. 15–16; Alan V. Murray, “The
Saracens of the Baltic. Pagan and Christian Lithuanians in the Perception of English and
French Crusaders to Late Medieval Prussia,” in Journal of Baltic Studies 41 (2010), 413–30.
Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 47

against Byzantium as a prelude to war against the Muslims.106 When the

Fourth Crusade resulted in the conquest of Constantinople in 1204 instead of
warfare against the Saracens, Innocent III gave his retrospective approval.107
After the conquest of Constantinople the idea of the schismatic as enemy
became firmly entrenched in crusading thought. Given the Latin Empire’s
need for protection from its Orthodox neighbours (the Empire of Nicaea and
Despotate of Epirus), Gregory IX, Innocent IV, and Urban IV announced cru-
sading indulgences in its support and against the schismatic Greeks.108 The
Greeks especially were deemed schismatic, while the other Orthodox religions
were considered of only marginal importance by the Roman curia.109 The
Russian regions bordering on Hungary, Poland, and Livonia were viewed as
peripheral, not in the same league as the Greek and Bulgarian opponents
of the Latin Emperor. Hungary’s church and nobility in the 1230s saw their
schismatic opponents much more in Bosnia than in Rus’.110 Moreover, rela-
tions between the Latins and the Greeks cannot be automatically transferred
to those between the Livonians and the Russians. The geographical distance
alone was too great. Livonia shared a border with pagan lands, in the form of
Lithuania, right up to the 14th century. The latter always presented a greater
military threat than the principalities of Rus’ and thus had a greater presence
in the relevant crusading accounts.

1.4 The Mission from Denmark and Bremen to the Eastern Baltic Coast

Scandinavia’s conversion to Christianity began around 1000 and continued for

sometime after. The central role was played by the archbishopric of Hamburg-
Bremen and the missionary tradition founded by its first archbishop, St Ansgar
(d. 865). The Scandinavian churches became autonomous during the 12th cen-
tury: Lund had become an independent archbishopric by 1104 at the latest,

106  Ernst-Dieter Hehl, Kirche und Krieg im 12. Jahrhundert. Studien zu kanonischem Recht und
politischer Wirklichkeit (Stuttgart, 1980) (Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters
19), pp. 13–19, 39–51, 148–49; Hehl, “Was ist eigentlich ein Kreuzzug?”, pp. 319–23.
107  Cf. Alfred J. Andrea, “Innocent III and the Byzantine Rite, 1198–1216,” in Urbs Capta. The
Fourth Crusade and its Consequences, ed. Angeliki Laiou (Paris, 2005) (Réalités Byzantines
10), pp. 111–22.
108  Nikolaus Paulus, Geschichte des Ablasses im Mittelalter vom Ursprunge bis zur Mitte des 14.
Jahrhunderts, vol. 2 (Paderborn, 1923), p. 27. On the crusades as a way of defending and
reestablishing the Latin Empire, see Housley, Later Crusades, pp. 49–55.
109  Purcell, Papal Crusading Policy, pp. 16–17.
110  Maier, Preaching, pp. 58–59.
48 chapter 1

Trondheim in 1153 and Uppsala in 1164. Precedence was assumed by the arch-
bishopric of Lund, whose archbishop also bore the title of primate of Sweden.
The interests of the metropolitan of Lund clashed with those of Bremen
over a wide area along the southern Baltic coast in Mecklenburg, Pomerania,
and Rügen.
Denmark was regarded as one of the centres for propagating crusading ide-
ology in the Baltic from the middle of the 12th century. The wars waged by
the Danish kings and the archbishops of Lund against the neighbouring pagan
peoples could be considered a continuation of the earlier Viking raids except
that they evolved in a legal sense into crusades. While the pagan Slavs did pose
a real threat to the coastal areas and to Denmark’s sailors, fighting against them
also offered the opportunity of fulfilling one’s warlike Christian duty in a way
that was much less costly and involved a less arduous journey than a crusade
to the Holy Land.111 Valdemar I and his son Knud portrayed themselves as lead-
ers of crusades on their coins and royal seals. From 1159 to 1185 King Valdemar I
and Absalon, the bishop of Roskilde (1158–91) and also archbishop of Lund
(1178–1201), embarked on 22 campaigns along the southern Baltic coast.112 The
area saw the foundation of a succession of monasteries under the auspices of
the archbishops of Lund, zealous patrons of the Cistercians. In 1168 the pagan
shrine of Arkona on Rügen was conquered. From this point onwards the sea
routes along the eastern Baltic coast became safer for the Danes, although the
struggle for dominance in northern Germany and Pomerania continued. The

111  Niels Skyum-Nielsen, Kvinde og Slave (Copenhagen, 1971), pp. 221–24; Thomas Riis,
Studien zur Geschichte des Ostseeraumes IV: Das mittelalterliche dänische Ostseeimperium
(Odense, 2003) (OUS 256); Janus Møller Jensen, “Sclavorum expugnator: Conquest,
Crusade, and Danish Royal Ideology in the Twelfth Century,” Crusades 2 (2003), 55–81;
idem, “Denmark and the First Crusades,” Revue d’Histoire Nordique 4 (2007), 82–100;
Carsten Selch Jensen, Kurt Villads Jensen and John H. Lind, “Communicating Crusades
and Crusading Communications in the Baltic Region,” Scandinavian Economic History
Review 49/2 (2001), 21–22; Jens E. Olesen, “Danish Crusades Towards the Eastern Baltic
Region Until c. 1250,” in ‘Ecclesia Nidrosiensis’ and ‘Norges veldi’. The Role of the Church in
the Making of Norwegian Domination in the Norse World, ed. Steinar Imsen, (Norgesveldet
occasional papers 3) (Trondheim, 2012), pp 347–64. Cf. Tyerman, Invention, pp. 14–19,
31–32; Kurt Villads Jensen, “Denmark and the Crusading Movement: The Integration of
the Baltic Region into Medieval Europe,” in Ships, Guns and Bibles in the North Sea and
Baltic States, c. 1350–c. 1700, ed. Allan I. Macinnes et. al. (East Linton, 2000), pp. 188–205;
Bysted et al., Jerusalem in the North.
112  Enn Tarvel, “Die dänische Ostseepolitik im 11.–13. Jahrhundert,” in Studien zur Archäologie
des Ostseeraumes. Von der Eisenzeit zum Mittelalter. Festschrift für Michael Müller-Wille,
ed. Anke Wesse (Neumünster, 1998), p. 54.
Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 49

political struggle was also manifested in the competition between the metro-
politans of Lund, Hamburg, Magdeburg, Bamberg, and Gniezno for the newly
Christianized areas and the submission of their population.113
Danish interests extended along the eastern Baltic coast as well. By means
of the so-called first crusade, occasionally referred to as legendary, under King
Erik the Holy (d. c. 1160) in the 1150s, the Swedish sovereigns began their con-
quest of Finland. However, it is not known whether this campaign was already
considered a crusade before the end of the 13th century.114 Sweden’s capacity to
embark on campaigns against the pagans remained slight, however, because of
the frequent succession struggles.115 The Danes, on the other hand, repeatedly
penetrated Finnish territory, with victory in 1191 under King Knud and perhaps
also in 1202 under Archbishop Anders Sunesen (d. 1228) and his brothers.116
These Finnish offensives have been seen as a precursor of the conflict with
schismatic Rus’. This is nevertheless hard to verify because it is not possible to
measure the extent of Novgorod’s influence in Finnish territory at the end of
the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries and therefore to what extent they
would have involved a confrontation with that principality. What is clear is that
the sources for this period do not mention military clashes between Rus’ and
Sweden or Denmark in terms that could be seen as an indication of a religious
conflict. In May 1164 the Swedes did indeed undertake a failed offensive against
Ladoga,117 but there is no reason to relate this campaign to the Christianization

113  Jürgen Petersohn, Der südliche Ostseeraum im kirchlich-politischen Kräftespiel des Reichs,
Polens und Dänemarks vom 10. bis 13. Jahrhundert. Mission—Kirchenorganisation—
Kultpolitik (Cologne-Vienna, 1979) (Ostmitteleuropa in Ver­gangenheit und Gegenwart 17);
for an overview, also Lotter, “Crusading Idea”.
114  Thomas Lindkvist, “Crusades and Crusading Ideology in the Political History of
Sweden, 1140–1500,” in Murray, Crusade and Conversion, pp. 122–23; cf. Christian Krötzl,
“Finnen, Liven, Russen. Zur päpstlichen Politik im nördlichen Ostseeraum im 12. und
13. Jahrhundert,” in Ab aquilone. Nordic Studies in Honour and Memory of Leonard E.
Boyle, O.P., ed. Marie-Louise Rodén (Stockholm, 1999) (Skrifter utgivna av Riksarkivet 14;
Svenska Intitutet i Rom, Suecoromana 6), p. 47.
115  Tarvel, “Dänische Ostseepolitik,” p. 53.
116  Annales Danici medii aevi, ed. Ellen Jørgensen (Copenhagen, 1920), pp. 92–93, 137, 145,
151, 164, 193, 196; Ex additamentis et continuationibus annalium ex Ryensibus excerpto-
rum, ed. Georg Waitz, in MGH SS, vol. 29 (Hanover, 1892), p. 231: “Biscop Anders oc hans
brøthære førdæ hær in i Finland”, 1202; Peep Peter Rebane, “Archbishop Anders Sunesen
and the Danish Conquest of Estonia,” Yearbook of The Estonian Learned Society in America
5/1968–75 (1976), 26; Tarvel, “Dänische Ostseepolitik,” pp. 54–55. See also Lind, “De rus-
siske ægteskaber,” p. 263.
117  N L1, pp. 31, 218–19.
50 chapter 1

of Finland.118 Evidence of a crusade in Finnish territory119 has been identified

in the letter of Alexander III dated 1171/72 to Archbishop Stephen of Uppsala
(d. c. 1185) and the jarl Guttorm. The letter says that the Phinni had promised
to convert to Christianity in view of the threat from certain enemy troops, but
had reneged on this promise once the armies had withdrawn.120 This reference
to enemy troops, however, does not allow us to draw any conclusions about
possible military endeavours against Rus’.121 It is true that the 16th-century
chronicle of Bishop Paulus Juusten of Viborg and Åbo (d. 1575) relates that Åbo
was razed to the ground by the Russians in 1198.122 However, even if this infor-
mation, in a work written at a time of extremely volatile relations between
Sweden and Russia, turned out to be correct, it would still only refer merely to
a single campaign.
Denmark’s interest in the territories of Estonia and Latvia appears even
more evident than its engagement in Finland. Although the traditions about
the success of the missionary work by Denmark in this period and the estab-
lishment of the diocese of Curonia in 1161 are not considered reliable,123 the
existence of Fulco, ‘bishop of the Estonians’, is confirmed by a number of con-
temporary sources from the 1160s and 1170s. He was ordained by Archbishop
Eskil of Lund (d. 1181/82), who was in exile in France at the time. It is none-
theless disputed whether and when Fulco in fact visited the Estonian region
and what consequences his visit might have had.124 In either 1170 or 1171 Pope

118  As in the case, for example, of Vasilij F. Andreev, “Отношения Новгорода и Швеции
в ХII–ХIV вв.,” in Novgorod—Örebro—Lübeck after 700 years, ed. Pär Hansson (Örebro,
1995), p. 34. The claim that the pillage of Sigtuna in Sweden by ‘pagans’ in 1187 was orga-
nized by Novgorod has no foundation in the sources. See Enn Tarvel, “Die Zerstörung
von Sigtuna im Jahre 1187,” in Tarp istorijos ir būtovės. Studijos prof. Edvardo Gudavičiaus
70-mečiui, ed. Alfredas Bumblauskas and Rimvydas Petrauskas (Vilnius, 1999), p. 31; Elena
A. Rybina, “Еще раз о “Сигтунском походе” 1187 г.,” in Великий Новгород и средневековая
Русь. Сборник статей к 80-летия академика В. Л. Янина, ed. Nikolai A. Makarov et al.
(Moscow, 2009), pp. 161–71.
119  Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси против крестоносной агрессии, pp. 57–59.
120  D D 1/3, no. 25; LUB 1, no. 5.
121  Cf. Tarvel, “Dänische Ostseepolitik,” p. 54.
122  Paulus Juusten, Catalogus et ordinaria successio episcoporum Finlandensium, ed. Simo
Heininen (Helsinki, 1988) (Suomen Kirkkohistoriallisen Seuran Toimituksia 143), p. 53.
123  Anti Selart, “Balduin von Alna, Dänemark und Rußland. Zur politischen Geschichte
Livlands in den 1230er Jahren,” in The Reception of Medieval Europe in the Baltic Sea Region,
ed. Jörn Staecker (Visby, 2009) (Acta Visbyensia 12), pp. 66–67.
124  Paul Johansen, Nordische Mission, Revals Gründung und die Schwedensiedlung in Estland
(Stockholm, 1951) (Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademiens Handlingar
74), pp. 88–106; Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 15–18; Tore Nyberg, “Deutsche, dänische
Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 51

Alexander III promised the kings of the Danes, Norwegians, Svear, and Goths,
as well as their princes and the Christian people, that whoever fought against
the pagan Estonians would be granted an indulgence for one year similar to
that for pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre.125 It cannot be ruled out therefore that
there was indeed a crusade to Estonia at that time or at least that one was
really planned under Eskil. It is not known whether there was a connection
between Fulco and the other letter of Alexander III, mentioned above, to the
archbishop of Uppsala and the jarl Guttorm concerning the Finns and pub-
lished two days before this Estonian letter, and, if so, what kind of connection.
Once the Wends had been defeated in northern Germany and Pomerania,
the wars in that region turned into a form of infighting among Christians,
while military campaigns against unbelievers were now undertaken in more
distant places. These campaigns were above all a reaction to regular pillaging
by the eastern Baltic peoples along the coasts of Denmark and Sweden.126 The
Scandinavian rulers planned or carried out offensives against these groups

und schwedische Christianisierungsversuche östlich der Ostsee im Geiste des 2. und

3. Kreuzzuges,” in Die Rolle der Ritterorden in der Christianisierung und Kolonisierung
des Ostseegebietes, ed. Zenon Hubert Nowak (Toruń, 1983) (OM 1), pp. 101–03; Manfred
Hellmann, “Die Anfänge christlicher Mission in den baltischen Ländern,” in Studien über
die Anfänge der Mission in Livland, ed. Manfred Hellmann (Sigmaringen, 1989) (Vorträge
und Forschungen, Sonderband 37), pp. 12–13; Peep Peter Rebane, “Denmark, the Papacy
and the Christianization of Estonia,” in Gli inizi del cristianesimo in Livonia-Lettonia, ed.
Michele Maccarrone (Vatican City, 1989) (Pontificio Comitato di Scienze Storiche. Atti
e documenti 1), pp. 176–78; Bernhart Jähnig, “Zisterzienser und Ritterorden zwischen
geistlicher und weltlicher Macht in Livland und Preußen zu Beginn der Missionszeit,” in
Die Ritterorden zwischen geistlicher und weltlicher Macht im Mittelalter, ed. Zenon Hubert
Nowak (Toruń, 1990) (OM 5), pp. 74–75; Krötzl, “Finnen,” pp. 47–48; Peep Peter Rebane,
“From Fulco to Theoderic. The Changing Face of the Livonian Mission,” in Muinasaja
loojangust omariikluse läveni. Pühendusteos Sulev Vahtre 75. sünnipäevaks, ed. Andres
Andresen (Tartu, 2001), 41–48; Tarvel, “Dänische Ostseepolitik,” pp. 55–56; Marek Tamm,
“Le rôle des missionaires nordiques dans la christianisation de l’Estonie,” in Aspects d’une
dynamique régionale: les pays nordiques dans le contexte de la Baltique, ed. Marc Auchet
and Annie Bourguignon (Nancy, 2001) pp. 121–32.
125  D D 1/3, no. 27; Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt, “Alexander III and the Crusades,” in Pope
Alexander III (1159–81). The Art of Survival, ed. Peter D. Clarke and Anne J. Duggan
(Farnham, 2012), pp. 355–59.
126  This refers to the campaigns by the Estonians and other Baltic peoples to Öland in 1170,
Sigtuna in 1187, Listerby in 1203, and to the Swedish coast in 1226. See Saxonis Gesta,
pp. 477–80 Lib. XIV, para. 40.2–11; HCL VII.1, p. 19; XXX.1, pp. 215–16.
52 chapter 1

during 1184–86.127 These campaigns served several purposes. On the one hand,
they were intended to satisfy the desire of the nobility and the king to obtain
the spiritual and political benefits entailed by the crusader status (simultane-
ously in 1192 a group of Danish knights moved to the Holy Land); on the other,
they represented a belated continuation of the Viking-era raids and countered
the raids of the pagans. They can also be seen as struggles for trading privi-
leges and freedom of the seas. The Curonians, Osilians, and others were able
to pose—at least as long as there was no peace128—a serious threat to mer-
chants, just like the Wends before them. For that reason towards the end of the
12th century Danish merchants (not in an ethnic sense but in terms of ‘state-
hood’) gathered together in St Knud’s guilds under royal protection, which, in
addition to their commercial purpose, also had a military and probably even
crusading-like function.129 The canonization of Duke Knud Lavard in 1169, too,
was a sign of the curia’s support for the Danish Baltic mission, and his cult
was in fact an expression of crusading ideology. The members of the St Knud’s
guilds probably took part in trade with Rus’, just as the merchants of Gotland
and northern Germany. The Danish crusades in the eastern Baltic are more
likely, therefore, to have been aimed at improving communication with Rus’,
rather than severing or disrupting it. Denmark’s attempts to gain power pre-
cisely in Ösel, then later in Reval (the St Knud’s guild first mentioned in 1326
may already have been founded there in the 13th century) and on the Daugava
River were driven by commercial interests. In trade relations with Rus’, in
which the Daugava served as the western transport route,130 Denmark’s efforts
at dominance could undoubtedly be traced back to even older traditions than
those of the north German merchants. The latter first gained the upper hand
on the Daugava in around 1200.
King Valdemar II of Denmark’s problems and opponents in Livonia included
not only the pagans but also the missionary and crusading policies of the

127  See Saxonis Gesta, p. 541 Lib. XVI, para. 4.3–4; Johansen, Nordische Mission, pp. 93–94;
Tarvel, “Dänische Ostseepolitik,” pp. 53–56. Cf. Nils Blomkvist, “Early Agents of
Europeanization: Nicholas and Fulco on the Bumpy Road to Twelfth-Century Estonia,”
in Sõnasse püütud minevik in honorem Enn Tarvel, ed. Priit Raudkivi and Marten Seppel
(Tallinn, 2009), pp. 29–31.
128  Such as peace between the Osilians and Gotland. See HCL VII.2, p. 19.
129  Kurt Villads Jensen, Korstog ved verdens yderste rand. Danmark og Portugal ca. 1000 til ca.
1250 (Odense, 2011) (OUS 418), pp. 371–76.
130  Arnis Radiņš, “Some Notes on the Daugava Way. The End of 12th—Beginning of 13th
Century. Time of Changes on the Lower Daugava,” in Culture Clash or Compromise? The
Europeanisation of the Baltic Sea Area 1100—1400 AD, ed. Nils Blomkvist (Visby, 1998) (Acta
Visbyensia 11), pp. 185–88.
Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 53

a­ rchbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen. The latter’s activity is documented in great

detail in the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, in contrast to the meagre infor-
mation given about Danish interests. The importance of the Christianization
of Pomerania, Prussia, and Livonia as a ‘German’ enterprise has clearly been
exaggerated in the historiography overall as a result of this bias in the ­sources.131
As a consequence, too little attention has been paid, on the one hand, to the
similar attempts at mission and conquest on the part of Scandinavian rulers
and, on the other, to the fact that the actual social and political basis in north-
ern Germany for Christian missions to Livonia was quite narrow. The main
role in the church of Üxküll (Riga), founded on the lower Daugava in the late
12th century, was played by members of a rather small number of houses of
ministeriales from the archbishopric of Bremen. This group of ministeriales
also provided the first bishop of the Livs, Meinhard (1186–96), and both of his
successors, Berthold (1196–98) and Albert (1199–1229), as well as their patron,
Archbishop Hartwig II of Bremen (d. 1207). However, the upper German
nobility was represented in Livonia essentially only in the form of occasional
crusaders; a famous exception was the abbot of Dünamünde and bishop of
Selonia, Bernard of Lippe (d. 1224).132
While our information about the commercial policy of the Danish kings
and archbishops of Lund in the Baltic remains largely hypothetical, a lot of
attention has been paid to the close connection between the Rigan mission in
Livonia, sent by the archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen, and northern German
merchants and their interests.133 Bernd Ulrich Hucker has pointed out the close
ties between the ministeriales and the urban elite at the turn of 12th and 13th
centuries based on research into the social structure of the cities of Westphalia
and Lower Saxony. He argues that the ministeriales and the urban elite along
the eastern Baltic coast pursued common interests: the latter needed secure
trade routes and new markets, and the former new estates—with both groups
seeking their salvation at the same time.134 It is indeed impossible to deny

131  A collection of the classic studies can be found in Heidenmission und Kreuzzugsgedanke
in der deutschen Ostpolitik des Mittelalters, ed. Helmut Beumann (Darmstadt, 1963) (Wege
der Forschung 7).
132  Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert, pp. 27–29; Bernd Ulrich Hucker, “Der Zister­zienserabt
Bertold, Bischof von Livland, und der erste Livlandkreuzzug,” in Hellmann, Studien,
pp. 59–64; Manfred Hellmann, “Bischof Meinhard und die Eigenart der kirchlichen
Organisation in den Baltischen Ländern,” in Maccarrone, Gli inizi, p. 18.
133  Paul Johansen, “Die Bedeutung der Hanse für Livland,” Hansische Geschichtsblätter 65/66
(1941), esp. pp. 3–12; cf. Leonid Arbusow, “Die Frage nach der Bedeutung der Hanse für
Livland,” Deutsches Archiv für Geschichte des Mittelalters 7 (1944), 212–39.
134  Hucker, “Zisterzienserabt Bertold,” pp. 57–58; cf. Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 18–19, 28–29.
54 chapter 1

either the important share merchants had in financing military expeditions or

the interdependency of the communication links between the Daugava River
and Germany for the transport of arms and other essentials by merchant ships.135
Nonetheless, the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia does not portray the mer-
chants as the driving force behind these policies but rather as the bishops’ fol-
lowers and henchmen.136 Notwithstanding, it is clear that there was a close
relationship between the nobility, the ministeriales, and the citizens of Livonia’s
towns during the first decades of the 13th century. In 1226 a treaty was agreed
in Riga granting the Order of the Sword Brothers the right to participate in the
city government; at the same time a number of burghers contemplated joining
the Order, which had some representatives on the town council.137 Some of
the Sword Brothers were indeed from the urban milieu, just as in the Livonian
branch of the Teutonic Order in the 13th century.138
The collaboration between the early Hanseatic merchants, the bishop of
Riga, and the Sword Brothers should not, of course, be romanticized. A mili-
tary conflict was just as liable to jeopardize as to secure trade routes. Around
1175 German traders fostered close peaceful relations with the Livs and possi-
bly also with the Osilians.139 Hostile actions would have put these at risk. The
role of merchants in Livonia’s early history was related very much to the start

135  Arbusow, “Frage,” pp. 225–26; Benninghoven, Orden, p. 50; Kattinger, Gotländische Genos-
senschaft, p. 182; Mark R. Munzinger, “The Profits of the Cross: Merchant Involvement in
the Baltic Crusade (c. 1180–1230),” Journal of Medieval History 32 (2006), 163–85.
136  Klaus Friedland, “Weltbild und Kaufmannsmoral im 13. Jahrhundert,” in ‘Vom rechten Maß
der Dinge’. Beiträge zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte. Festschrift für Harald Witthöft
zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Rainer S. Elkar et al. (St Katharinen, 1996) (Sachüberlieferung und
Geschichte 17), pp. 674–75.
137  L UB 6, no. 2717: “quod omnes fratres sint veri cives Rigenses . . . duo de fratribus vel unus
erunt de consilio civitatis, ut intersint consiliis civitatis, quando voluerint et potuerint
interesse”; LVA, no. 128; Friedrich G. von Bunge, Die Stadt Riga im dreizehnten und vier-
zehnten Jahrhundert. Geschichte, Verfassung und Rechtszustand (Leipzig, 1878), p. 20.
138  Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 206–22, 420–68; Klaus Militzer, “Die Ritterbrüder im liv-
ländischen Zweig des Deutschen Ordens,” in Ritterbrüder im livländischen Zweig des
Deutschen Ordens, ed. Lutz Fenske and Klaus Militzer (Cologne-Weimar-Vienna, 1993)
(Quellen und Studien zur baltischen Geschichte 12), pp. 50–54.
139  See Goetz, Deutsch-Russische Handelsgeschichte, pp. 443–51; Kattinger, Gotländische
Genossenschaft, pp. 141–42, 167; Ivar Leimus, “Wann und woher ist der deutsche Kaufmann
nach Livland gekommen? Eine numismatische Studie,” in Delectat et docet. Festschrift
zum 100jährigen Bestehen des Vereins der Münzenfreunde in Hamburg, ed. Manfred Mehl
(Hamburg, 2004), pp. 317–32.
Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 55

of relations between Livonia and Rus’: merchant interests lay much more in a
peaceful approach than in war.140

1.5 The Papal Curia and North-Eastern Europe

Discussion of the interests of the different powers in the Baltic and of different
social levels in developments in Livonia in the 13th century raises the question
of the role of the papacy and the curia. The popes have often been viewed as
an essentially leading and active force in Livonia or at the very least as media-
tors and overseers of the different political tendencies. This prevailing view
has been revised during the last forty years or so. Ernst Pitz (1928–2009) has
noted that the papal letters, which might appear to reflect the curia’s indepen-
dent policy, actually refer back to the information supplied by the petitioner
and that the curia was not in a position either to check the accuracy of this
information or verify whether its orders had been carried out in north-eastern
Europe. He argues that Innocent III did not conduct an independent policy
in Livonia and that Bishop Albert’s plans had initially in fact only proved an
obstacle to the pope in his grand crusading vision for the Holy Land.141 A papal
letter relating to Livonia was more likely to reflect the interests of the Livonian
petitioner than those of the curia.142 The stress laid on deficient communica-
tion is not merely a reflection of the concerns of today’s information society,
either: there were already complaints about this in the Middle Ages. The proc-
urators at the curia provided a more institutionalized form of disseminating
information somewhat later. Leaving aside some possible reservations about
Pitz’s study,143 his findings are generally correct. It is highly illuminating that
the papal rescripts on the missionary work in Livonia can no longer be quali-
fied as political correspondence, nor as one-sided and arbitrary interference
by the curia in foreign affairs. The papacy’s interest and desire to conduct an

140  See Hellmann, “Begegnungen,” p. 121; cf. Johansen, “Bedeutung,” pp. 11–12, 38; Arbusow,
“Frage,” pp. 232–33.
141  Ernst Pitz, Papstreskript und Kaiserreskript im Mittelalter (Tübingen, 1971) (Bibliothek des
Deutschen historischen Instituts in Rom 36), pp. 19, 23, 44.
142  Pitz, Papstreskript, pp. 135–36.
143  See the summary of the debate in Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic
Crusades 1147–1254 (Leiden-Boston, 2007) (The Northern World 26), pp. 15–21.
56 chapter 1

independent policy still cannot be denied; the question is what means did it
have of actually influencing the missions to Livonia.144
There were numerous embassies from Livonia to the curia seeking a favour-
able decision. Theodoric (d. 1219), Meinhard’s assistant and later the bishop
of Estonia, and Bishop Albert of Riga were constantly travelling to Rome. The
journeys undertaken by the papal legates and collectors to Europe’s fringes took
a long time and did not lead to rapid success. It was extremely time-consuming
to send back questions and obtain and send authorizations. On more than one
occasion questions were raised on which the curia was unable to reach a deci-
sion because of lack of information and ignorance of local conditions.145 This
illustrates extremely well the slow journey time. It must also be remembered
that sending an embassy to the other end of Europe was in itself laborious and
expensive, not to mention the costs incurred at the destination itself.146 An
additional problem should be mentioned, namely that it has not been doc-
umented whether every letter entered in the register of the papal chancery
ever reached its addressee and had any impact on the situation there (only
a few originals or copies made in northern Europe are known).147 Moreover,
sometimes what mattered was less the actual circumstances of a letter than its
formal aspects. Individuals with the power of decision in a particular matter
were susceptible to influence. When a complaint or petition was submitted
to the pope, influence had to be exerted on the members of the curia and, for

144  Hartmut Boockmann, Der Deutsche Orden. Zwölf Kapitel aus seiner Geschichte (Munich,
1989), pp. 266–67; Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades. See also
Hellmann, “Begegnungen,” p. 124; Richard Spence, “Pope Gregory IX and the Crusade on
the Baltic,” The Catholic Historical Review 69 (1983), 5; Jane Sayers, Innocent III. Leader of
Europe 1198–1216 (London-New York, 1994), pp. 87–91. Cf. Marek Tamm, “Communicating
Crusade: Livonian Mission and the Cistercian Network in the Thirteenth Century,”
Ajalooline Ajakiri 3/4 (2009), 341–72; Anti Selart, “Popes and Livonia in the First Half of the
Thirteenth Century: Means and Chances to Shape the Periphery,” The Catholic Historical
Review 100 (2014), 437–58.
145  Christine Schuchard, “Päpstliche Legaten und Kollektoren nördlich der Alpen,” in
Kommunikation und Mobilität im Mittelalter. Begegnungen zwischen dem Süden und
der Mitte Europas (11.–14. Jahrhundert), ed. Siegfried de Rachewiltz and Josef Riedmann
(Sigmaringen, 1995), pp. 261, 269; Krötzl, “Finnen,” pp. 44–45. Cf. Tyerman, Invention,
pp. 47–48.
146  Anti Selart, “Pellegrini del Nord-Est dell’Europa sulla via di Roma (Secoli XIII–XVI),” in La
Via Teutonica. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi, Venezia, 29 guigno 2012, ed. Renato
Stopani and Fabrizio Vanni (Florence, 2013), pp. 117–37.
147  Pitz, Papstreskript, pp. 78–79.
Religious Frontier in Eastern Europe in the Twelfth Century 57

example, a suitable legate appointed.148 A legate’s powers were limited by his

authorization, his acceptance, and the local conditions.149
The significance of imperial or papal diplomas as weapons in the political
struggle should not therefore be overestimated.150 Livonia was a truly marginal,
remote province for the popes. The Baltic missions were driven by the centres
of power of Scandinavia and northern Germany, not by Rome.151 The papacy’s
main interest lay in the international politics of the age: the crusades in the
Holy Land and against the Albigensians, the balance of power in Italy, and rela-
tions with the emperor and imperial pretenders. Livonia remained well in the
background compared to these issues. The curia ultimately lacked the means
to force through any ‘independent policy’ it might have in Livonia. Crusading
politics in north-eastern Europe in the strict sense has been seen as non-papal
in the second half of the 13th century too: the calls to crusade, based on meagre
information, were a political instrument used by local rulers.152 The papacy’s
own political proposals could typically be implemented on the ground if they
coincided with the interests of an influential regional power. In the 14th cen-
tury the papacy’s political initiatives continued to be extremely limited on
Europe’s north-eastern periphery,153 despite the more regular communication

148  Examples can be found in Werner Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg von 1191 bis 1216.
Die Kardinäle unter Coelestin III. und Innocenz III. (Vienna, 1984) (Publikationen des
Historischen Instituts beim Österreichischen Kulturinstitut in Rom Abteilung 1, 6),
pp. 250–86.
149  Claudia Zey, “Legaten im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert. Möglichkeiten und Beschränkungen
(am Beispiel der Iberischen Halbinsel, des Heiligen Landes und Skandinaviens),” in
Das begrenzte Papsttum: Spielräume päpstlichen Handelns. Legaten, delegierte Richter,
Grenzen, ed. Klaus Herbers et al. (Berlin-Boston, 2013) (Abhandlungen der Akademie der
Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Neue Folge 25), pp. 199–212; Mihkel Mäesalu, “Päpstliche
und kaiserliche Machtansprüche im livländischen Kreuzzugsgebiet im 13. Jahrhundert,”
ZfO 62 (2013), pp. 472–89.
150  See Bernhart Jähnig, “Der Deutsche Orden und die livländischen Bischöfe im
Spannungsfeld von Kaiser und Papst,” Nordost-Archiv N.F. 7/1 (1998), 57.
151  Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades; eadem, “Riga and Rome: Henry of
Livonia and the Papal Curia,” in Tamm, Crusading and Chronicle Writing, pp. 209–27.
152  Purcell, Papal Crusading Policy, pp. 90–91; cf. Leonid Arbusow, “Review of A. M. Ammann,
Kirchenpolitische Wandlungen im Ostbaltikum,” in Kyrios. Vierteljahresschrift für
Kirchen- und Geistesgeschichte Osteuropas 1/3 (1936), 300, 303; Jensen, Jensen and Lind,
“Communicating,” pp. 8–14. Cf. Carsten Selch Jensen, “Valdemar Sejr, korstogsbevæ-
gelsen og den pavelige reformpolitik i 1200-tallets første halvdel,” in Historisk Tidsskrift
(Copenhagen) 102 (2002), 23–54.
153  Sebastian Zanke, Johannes XXII., Avignon und Europa. Das politische Papsttum im
Spiegel der kurialen Register (1316–1334) (Leiden-Boston, 2013) (Studies in Medieval and
Reformation Traditions 175), pp. 114–15.
58 chapter 1

due in particular to the curia’s more widespread practice of awarding bene-

fices. Given the decisive importance of local relations and politics for events
in Livonia in the 13th century, it follows that Livonian-Russian relations can-
not be automatically interpreted as a papal-orchestrated attack on the Eastern
church or a papal-organized defence against the Eastern threat. In answering
the question of whether and to what extent these relations were influenced by
independent papal decisions and what information these hypothetical deci-
sions were based on, it is necessary to examine the specific circumstances of
each individual case in the Livonian and Russian territories at the time.
Part 1

∵
 chapter 2

The Beginning of the Crusades in Livonia and

their Impact on Rus’

2.1 The Influence of Rus’ on the Eastern Baltic Coast at the End
of the Twelfth Century

When the crusading missions—or expansion, depending on the point of

view—set out from Denmark and northern Germany for the eastern Baltic
coast at the end of the 12th century,1 the peoples of what is now modern
Estonia and Latvia had already been living for several hundred years right next
to the powerful medieval realm, or collection of principalities, of Rus’. Their
relations with Rus’ could vary from more or less peaceful to overtly hostile.
When permanent bases first began to be established for missionaries, crusad-
ers, and merchants along the Daugava estuary, and then at the site of Reval in
Estonia, the new centres of power that arose built their relations with their
eastern neighbours on the basis of the earlier relationship of these peoples
with Rus’.
The most important sources for the relations of the Estonian and Latvian
regions with the Russian principalities before the 13th century are the accounts
found in the Russian chronicles. These are highly susceptible to different
interpretations, however. It is common for the chronicles just to mention the
campaign of a particular prince against a given place or people sometimes
in greater detail and at other times in very general terms. Nor do the sources
specify whether the aim of a particular campaign was the conquest of the ter-
ritory, the suppression of a revolt or simply a raid. This field of research has
also been hampered by scholars’ attempts to find arguments for and against
the legitimacy of Russia’s dominance in the Baltic during the period. Views
range across the entire spectrum, from the past independence of the Estonians

1  See the most recent general accounts by Barbara Bombi, Novella plantatio fidei. Missione e
crociata nel Nord Europa tra la fine del XII e i primi decenni del XIII secolo (Rome, 2007) (Nuovi
studi storici 74); Christopher Tyerman, God’s War. A New History of the Crusades (London,
2006), pp. 674–714; Andres Kasekamp, A History of the Baltic States (Houndmills, 2010),
pp. 11–24; Bysted et al., Jerusalem in the North; The North-Eastern Frontiers of Medieval Europe.
The Expansion of Latin Christendom in the Baltic Lands, ed. Alan V. Murray (Farnham, 2014).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004284753_004

62 chapter 2

and Latvians to their incontrovertible incorporation in the Russian realm.2 The

perspective chosen on this issue in turn influences the approach adopted to
the history of the 13th century. Depending on the political status accorded to
the peoples living in the eastern Baltic on the eve of the crusades, the latter
will either be presented as military campaigns directed against the pagans or
entirely against Rus’.3
Looking at Estonia first of all, according to the Russian chronicles, a people
called the ‘Chuds’, also mentioned as owing tribute to the Russian princes, were
part of the history of the Russian realm. This term denoted the Finnic peoples
of north-eastern Europe in the early Middle Ages, and mostly Estonians in the
later Middle Ages. Some Chuds had attained a prominent position at the court
of the early Russian princes. Military campaigns against the Chuds are men-
tioned in the chronicles from the 11th century. They were defeated by Prince
Iaroslav Vladimirovich (d. 1054) sometime around 1030. He built a fortress on
the site of the later Dorpat, which stood firm until 1061, when members of a
tribe called “sosoly” (сосолы) conquered the fortress and plundered the region
as far as Pskov. Prince Mstislav Vladimirovich of Novgorod led three expedi-
tions against the Chuds between 1111 and 1116 at places called “Ochela”, “na Boru”
(Очела; на Бору), and Odenpäh, capturing the latter. Three further campaigns
were also conducted against the same people by Prince Vsevolod Mstislavich
of Novgorod (d. 1138), who took Dorpat but suffered a defeat in Klin. The Chuds
attacked Pskov during the years 1176–80. This was countered by Prince Mstislav
Rostislavich of Novgorod (d. 1180) by invading Ochela. Finally, several clashes
between the Russians and the Chuds took place during the years 1190–92, with
the Russians capturing Dorpat and burning Odenpäh to the ground. The pic-
ture is confusing, not only because various hypotheses, equally unconfirmed
in the sources, have been put forward regarding the causes of these military
campaigns,4 but because the ethnonyms and toponyms are far from always

2  The difference in opinion is also the result of different views about what the Kievan realm
actually consisted of and how its parts were related to one another.
3  See Erkki Kuujo and Heikki Kirkinen, “Baltiassa ja Suomessa asuneidin heimojen osal-
listuminen Itämeren alueen kysymysten katkaisuun 1100- ja 1200-luvulla,” Historiallinen
Arkisto 69 (1975), 30–46; Anti Selart, “Власть русских князей в Прибалтике в XI–XIII вв.:
источники и интерпретация,” in Сословия, институты и государственная власть в
России. Средние века и раннее Новое время. Сборник статей памяти академика Л. В.
Черепнина, ed. Valentin L. Ianin and Vladislav D. Nazarov (Moscow, 2010) (Studia philolo­
gica), pp. 284–94.
4  For example, Evald Blumfeldt, “Estonian-Russian Relations from the IX–XIII Century,”
in Charisteria Iohanni Kõpp octogenario oblata, ed. Jakob Aunver and Arthur Võõbus
(Stockholm, 1954) (Eesti Usuteadlaste Selts Paguluses Toimetised 7), pp. 220–22; Gertrud
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 63

being clear. The people referred to as Chuds did not just live in the area of
modern Estonia but also in Votia, along the river Pliusa, and elsewhere east of
Lake Peipus.5
It proves difficult based on this evidence to draw firm conclusions regard-
ing the connections between the different political entities in Russian and
Estonian territory. Historians in the Russian historiographical tradition have
viewed Estonian territory as dependent on Novgorod and Pskov for the period
around 1200. They take the view that, if not all of Estonia, then at least Ugaunia
and the small adjoining lands had always been part of the Russian realm, while
the rest of the region was at least subject to Russian influence. It has been
argued that the tribute intended for Novgorod was collected by the local ruling
elites, who would sometimes refuse to hand it over, thus provoking the mili-
tary campaigns of the Russian princes.6 On the other hand, Baltic German and
Estonian scholars have noted, based on the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, that
any supposed former dependence of south-eastern Estonia was a thing of the
past at the beginning of the 13th century. The Russian campaigns in Estonia at
the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries did not, in their view,
have a lasting impact, let alone justify talk of a tributary dependency or areas
belonging to the territory of the Russian princes.7 The fact that the offensives
against some castles ended with the collection of tribute by the Russian troops
does not necessarily mean that the area was a dependency.8 Such dependency
on Pskov or Novgorod would, in the case of Estonia, primarily concern the

Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov. Entstehung und Entwicklung eines städtischen Herrschaftszentrums

in Altrußland (Wiesbaden, 1992) (Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte 47),
pp. 94–95. Cf. Andres Tvauri, Muinas-Tartu. Uurimus Tartu muinaslinnuse ja asula asustus-
loost (Tartu-Tallinn 2001) (Muinasaja teadus 10), pp. 215–32; Andres Tvauri, The Migration
Period, Pre-Viking Age, and Viking Age Estonia (Tartu, 2012) (Estonian Archaeology, 4),
pp. 33–35, 59–62.
5  Anti Selart, “Gab es eine altrussische Tributherrschaft in Estland (10.–12. Jahrhundert)?,”
Forschungen zur baltischen Geschichte 10 (2015) (forthcoming).
6  Anatolii P. Novoseltsev, Vladimir T. Pashuto and Lev V. Cherepnin, Пути развития
феодализма (Закавказье, Средняя Азия, Русь, Прибалтика) (Moscow, 1972), pp. 261–86;
Igor P. Shaskolskii, “Эстония и Древняя Русь,” in Studia historica in honorem Hans Kruus,
ed. Juhan Kahk and Artur Vassar (Tallinn, 1971), pp. 123–28; Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси против
крестоносной агрессии, pp. 15–20.
7  Friedrich von Keussler, Der Ausgang der ersten russischen Herrschaft in den gegenwärtigen
Ostseeprovinzen im XIII. Jahrhundert (St Petersburg, 1897), p. 81; Heinrich Laakmann, “Estland
und Livland in frühgeschichtlicher Zeit,” in Ostbaltische Frühzeit, ed. Carl Engel (Leipzig,
1939) (Baltische Lande 1), p. 239; Herbert Ligi, Talupoegade koormised Eestis 13. sajandist 19.
sajandi alguseni (Tallinn, 1968), pp. 43–44; cf. p. 46.
8  N L1, pp. 52–53, 183, 250–51; HCL XV.8, p. 99; XIV.2, p. 74.
64 chapter 2

lands of Ugaunia. Yet according to the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia there was
no ‘Russian’ dominance in these areas at the beginning of the 13th century.
Nevertheless, the fact that attacks by both sides are concentrated in certain
periods indicates that a more complex set of relations was at play than a sim-
ple appetite for booty.9
The Novgorod chronicles do not mention either the events in the Baltic at
the beginning of the 13th century or the campaigns carried out east of Lake
Peipus or the river Narva unless they affected Novgorod’s core territory.10 Such
developments remained outside Novgorod’s active area of interest and were
only recorded to the extent that they might involve a prince, for instance,
and could thus be integrated into the narrative of Rus’ as a historical dynas-
tic entity. What occurred elsewhere was of no interest to the authors of the
chronicles.11 It can therefore be inferred from the silence of the chronicles
on these matters that Ugaunia and other Estonian lands were not part of the
Rus’ sphere of influence. This view could be countered by pointing out that
south-eastern Estonia would have been of more interest to directly neighbour-
ing Pskov than Novgorod in any case. The problem is that there is no independ-
ent chronicle tradition in Pskov for this early period to allow this argument to
be properly scrutinized. By contrast other events, such as Pskov’s interests in
Tolowa, did find their way into the Novgorod Chronicle by virtue of the joint
campaigns conducted by the princes of Novgorod and Pskov, and thus the
chronicle’s silence does indeed suggest that there was no direct dependency
of the Estonian areas.
Latvia is traversed by an important transportation route, the Daugava River.
This fact alone was undoubtedly one of the reasons why the links between
Latvian territory and Rus’ were more developed than those with Estonian ter-
ritory. Control of this important trade route brought direct revenue in the form
of taxes and dues and was also valuable in terms of regular and guaranteed
trade. Not just the archbishop of Bremen or the king of Denmark showed an
interest in controlling the Daugava, so did its closest neighbour, the p
­ rincipality

9  On the dependency involved in tribute in Rus’, see Danilevskii, Древняя Русь, pp. 125–36.
10  See HCL XXV.6, p. 185; Timofei V. Gimon, “Военная история Балтийского региона в
ХII–ХIII вв. и новгородская летопись,” in Висы дружбы. Сборник статей в честь
Татьяны Николаевны Джаксон, ed. Natalia Iu. Gvozdetskaia et al. (Moscow, 2011),
pp. 74–82.
11  Timofei V. Gimon, “Отражение в Новгородском летописании ХII–ХIII вв.
неновгородских событий,” in Восточная Европа в древности и средневековье.
Контакты, зоны контактов и контактные зоны. ХI Чтения памяти В. Т. Пашуто
(Moscow, 1999), pp. 139–44.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 65

of Polotsk. Eastern Latvia’s economic relationship with Rus’ during the early
period12 was both a prerequisite for and consequence of this interest.
It is striking that the Russian chronicles record surprisingly few military
actions in Latvian territory compared with Estonian territory. Only the follow-
ing events are mentioned. The army of the prince of Polotsk was defeated by
the Semgallians in 1106.13 Following the repulsion of a Lithuanian (Lettgallian?)
raid, an attack on Lettgallia was launched from Novgorod and Velikiye Luki in
1200.14 The Novgorod Chronicle records the campaigns of the Novgorod princes
c. 1111 and 1180 to Ochela (на Очелу), a region usually identified with Adsel.15
The lack of reports about possible campaigns in Latvian territory might be
explained by the fact that the local Polotsk chronicle tradition either never
existed or has been lost (see p. 69), whereas the Novgorod tradition survived
and was incorporated into the all-Russian chronicles from the 15th century.
That there is no mention of clashes between Russian and Lettgallian forces
over the highly prosperous and lucrative Daugava area is not necessarily evi-
dence, therefore, that such clashes did not take place.
The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia confirms that at the end of the 12th and
beginning of the 13th centuries the Daugava Livs and the Tolowa Letts were
within the Rus’ area of influence. The nature of their dependency and the
extent of the influence remains unclear. Between Tolowa and Pskov lay Adsel,
whose duty to pay tribute to Pskov is still testified to in the last quarter of the
13th century.16 According to Henry, Kokenhusen and Gerzike were principal-
ities connected to Rus, but their immediate subordination to Polotsk is not
mentioned. Perhaps one can treat them as sub-principalities that began to be
able to act independently as Polotsk declined in influence. Polotsk nonethe-
less appears to have ranked above them in power and authority.17 Kokenhusen
and Gerzike were strategic crossing points over the Daugava, making them
important for all the groups involved in the Daugava trade. Moreover, the river
Daugava was not navigable by ship along its entire course because of rapids
between Holme and Gerzike, where goods had to be unloaded.

12  Evalds S. Mugurevich, Восточная Латвия и соседние земли в Х–ХIII вв. Экономические
связи с Русью и другими территориями. Пути сообщения (Riga, 1965).
13  Лаврентьевская летопись, p. 281.
14  NL1, pp. 45, 239.
15  NL1, pp. 20, 36; Ипатьевская летопись, p. 608. Cf. another identification of the toponym
by Enn Tarvel, “Kas Otšela tšuudid olid Koivalinna eestlased?” in Keel ja Kirjandus 18
(1975), 549–52.
16  PL 1, pp. 13–14; PL 2, pp. 22, 88.
17  HCL X.3, p. 34; XVI.2, p. 102; cf. XI.9, p. 57.
66 chapter 2

A distinction should also be made between directly dependent lands and

communities over whom Russian princes only exercised a weak political influ-
ence. It has been claimed based on Henry’s information that Kokenhusen and
Gerzike were Russian principalities governed by the Russian princes Viachko
and Vsevolod at the beginning of the 13th century. Historians have used differ-
ent formulations to describe the situation, ranging from a type of dependency
not defined in more detail to classifying the territory of Latvia as originally part
of Rus’.18
For their part, in the 20th century Latvian historians in particular have
stressed Gerzike’s and Kokenhusen’s “independence”19—both now in modern
Latvia—without denying a certain connection to Polotsk. Starting from the
premise that the term rutheni as used in Henry’s chronicle was not just an eth-
nic term but also indicated adherence to the Orthodox religion, they concluded
that the majority of the population of these places consisted of Orthodox
Lettgallians, with only the occasional Russian. The Russian influence should
be seen in the context, not of political dependency, but commercial links and
dynastic marriage.20 According to Henry’s chronicle, Gerzike and Kokenhusen
do indeed appear not always to have been on good terms with Polotsk and
acted with considerable leeway towards Lithuania and Riga.21 Latvian histo-
rians thus argued that the relationship with Polotsk was more akin to a bond

18  See Keussler, Ausgang, pp. 3–6; Michael von Taube, “Russische und litauische Fürsten
an der Düna zur Zeit der deutschen Eroberung Livlands (XII. und XIII. Jahrhundert),”
Jahrbücher für Kultur und Geschichte der Slaven N.F. 11 (1935), 391; Manfred Hellmann,
Das Lettenland im Mittelalter. Studien zur ostbaltischen Frühzeit und lettischen
Stammesgeschichte, insbesondere Lettgallens (Münster-Cologne, 1954) (Beiträge zur
Geschichte Osteuropas 1), pp. 61–62.
19  Radiņš, “Some notes,” pp. 184–85.
20  Arveds Švābe, Straumes un avoti, vol. 2 (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1965), pp. 353–59; Arnolds
Spekke, History of Latvia. An Outline (Stockholm, 1951), pp. 117–18; Evgeniia L. Nazarova,
“Православие и социальная структура общества в Латвии (ХI–ХIII вв.),” in Феодализм
в России. Сборник статей и воспоминании посвященный памяти академика Льва В.
Черепнина, ed. Valentin L. Ianin (Moscow, 1987), p. 205; Muntis Auns, “Acquisition of the
Acquired. The Establishing of a Real Administration in Livonia,” in Blomkvist, Culture
Clash or Compromise?, p. 259. For Henry, not to mention for Livonians in the 13th cen-
tury, origin and language was undoubtely important in defining a group. See Jüri Kivimäe,
“Henricus the Ethnographer: Reflections on Ethnicity in the Chronicle of Livonia,” in
Tamm, Crusading and Chronicle Writing, pp. 77–106.
21  Leonid V. Alekseev, Полоцкая земля в IХ–ХIII вв. (очерки истории северной Белоруссии)
(Moscow, 1966), p. 285.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 67

between allies and friends rather than an outright dependency.22 Even while
admitting that the patriotic romanticization of the ancient Latvian kings and
their independence23 can no longer be accepted, unreserved qualification of
the Daugava princes as subservient to Polotsk and as belonging to its dynasty
is not plausible either.
There is general consensus among scholars that the dependence on Pskov
of Tolowa and Adsel, which lies towards Pskov, was weak. Pskov did levy dues
on them but it is not known with what regularity.24 West of Tolowa there was
no duty to pay tribute.25 The Livs on the Daugava estuary had to pay tribute to
Polotsk. This suggests that they were allied with rather faraway Polotsk instead
of the closer principalities of Gerzike and Kokenhusen. Their tribute was appar-
ently collected by the local rulers and then delivered to Polotsk.26 This unusual
situation can be explained by the general decline of Polotsk as a power and its
fragmentation into sub-principalities from the second half of the 12th century
onwards. The former duty of paying tribute to Polotsk by the militarily weaker
Livs remained in force even when the rulers of Gerzike and Kokenhusen could
act independently to some degree. The dependency of the Livs appears to have
been limited to the payment of tribute.27 Although the Livs took part in the
Polotsk expedition against Smolensk in 1180,28 together with the Lithuanians,
this can just as easily be seen as a joint action by allies rather than an obliga-
tion owed as part of a relationship of dependency. At any rate, it points to an
alliance between the Livs and Polotsk. There was another Liv group living on
the Gauja River in Livonia, near the coast. Archaeological findings have con-
firmed that Livs on the coast had contact with both Rus’ and Scandinavia. The

22  Švābe, Straumes, vol. 2, pp. 366–67; Muntis O. Auns, Социально-экономическая и

политическая структура древней Латгалии ХII–ХIII вв. Автореферат диссертации
на соискание ученой степени кандидата исторических наук (Riga, 1985), p. 17.
23  Ilgvars Misāns, “‘Wir waren immer ein Kriegervolk’. Die Darstellung der ost-
baltischen Kreuzzüge in der lettischen Geschichtsschreibung,” in Lippe und Livland.
Mittelalterliche Herrschaftsbildung im Zeichen der Rose, ed. Jutta Prieur (Bielefeld, 2008)
(Sonderveröffentlichungen des Naturwissenschaftlichen und Historischen Vereins für
das Land Lippe 82), pp. 185–207.
24  Keussler, Ausgang, p. 70; Spekke, History, p. 117; Auns, Социально-экономическая и
политическая структура, pp. 18–19.
25  Laakmann, “Estland,” p. 210.
26  Evgeniia L. Nazarova, “Из истории взаимоотношений ливов с Русью (Х–ХIII вв.),” in
DG 1985 год, 1986, p. 182.
27  Laakmann, “Estland,” p. 210; Nazarova, “Из истории взаимоотношений,” p. 180.
28  Ипатьевская летопись, p. 620.
68 chapter 2

names of their elders tend to suggest kinship with Scandinavians, however.29

Unfortunately the evidence that would permit us to decide whether the Livs of
the Gauja were dependent on Polotsk is lacking.30
The key issue in any assessment of events on the Daugava at the beginning
of the 13th century is defining the personal ties of the princes of Kokenhusen
and Gerzike. As mentioned above, it has been argued that these areas were
Russian principalities governed by the Russian princes Viachko and Vsevolod.
Henry’s chronicle calls the princes Viesceka (or Wetseke, Vetseke, Vesceka) and
Vissewalde (or Wiscewalde, Wissewaldus, Wyssewaldus). The Novgorod chroni-
cles mention the prince of Kokenhusen in the context of the capture of Dorpat
in 1224, using the variant ‘Viachko’. In the historiography both princes are
linked with the Riurikid house under the names Viachko and Vsevolod, despite
the fact that the name Vsevolod does not appear anywhere in the contempo-
rary sources. Conversely, the notion has become widespread in 20th-century
Latvian historiography that the impression given in Henry’s chronicle that
these princes were Russian rulers should be understood not in ethnic but in
religious terms and that consequently the individual referred to is the ‘Latvian’
king (or at most a ruler of Lithuanian descent) Visvaldis and perhaps, in the
case of Vetseke, a prince of Liv or Latvian origin. The debate about the princes’
nationality is, of course, very much a 20th-century one. What is relevant to
research into 13th-century history is their genealogical kinship, which would
have partly determined their political relationships.31 Henry’s chronicle draws
a distinction for Kokenhusen between the Rutheni, who moved to Rus’ with
the princes, and the Lethigalli and the Selones, who remained behind after
Viachko’s departure.32 This would tend to suggest that the author of the chron-
icle differentiated between ethnic groups, not only according to religious
markers.

29  Evald Tõnisson, Die Gauja-Liven und ihre materielle Kultur (11. Jh.—Anfang 13. Jhs.). Ein
Beitrag zur ostbaltischen Frühgeschichte (Tallinn, 1974), pp. 170–71.
30  Keussler, Ausgang, pp. 3–6; cf. Tõnisson, Gauja-Liven, p. 172.
31  A comprehensive introduction to the historiography on this issue is provided by Wolfgang
Laur, “Überlegungen zur Herkunft des Wissewalde (Vsevolod) von Gerzike (Jersika),”
ZfO 35 (1986), 505; Evgeniia L. Nazarova, “Русско-латгальские контакты в ХII–ХIII вв.
в свете генеалогии князей Ерсики и Кокнесе,” in DG 1992–1993 годы, 1995, p. 185. In
the original charter between Vsevolod and Bishop Albert dating from c. 1210 the variant
Wiscewolodus is found. This name was understood as Wsewolodus by the 16th century at
the latest: LGU 1, no. 2. Vissivaldr as a Scandinavian version of Vsevolod is testified to in
the sources: Fedor B. Uspenskii, Скандинавы, p. 32.
32  HCL XI.9, p. 58.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 69

Between the two world wars the legal historian and genealogist Michael
von Taube (1869–1961) drew up a genealogical chart according to which not
only Viachko and Vsevolod, but also the Liv chieftains were descended from
the Riurikid line. Vsevolod was thus the son of Grand Prince Mstislav-Boris
Romanovich of Kiev (d. 1222), and the Liv chieftains Wane and Vesike were the
sons of Prince Vladimir Iaroslavich of Galicia. Viachko belonged to the fam-
ily of Polotsk princes.33 However, this creation of ties of kinship between the
majority of the Lettgallian and Liv nobles on the one hand and the Russian
dynasty on the other can hardly be sustained when it is based only on more
or less similar name variants with no consideration for the historical context.
A key source for Taube’s reconstruction (while only relying on its content
selectively) was the so-called legend of Sviatokhna, entered under the year 1217
in the History of Russia of the Russian historian Vasilii Tatishchev (1686–1750).
This recounts how Prince Boris Davydovich of Polotsk married Sviatokhna, the
daughter of Duke Casimir of Pomerania. She came to Polotsk together with a
Latin priest and many Pomeranians. When Sviatokhna gave birth to her son
Vladimir, she began to mistreat her stepchildren Vasilko and Viachko from
Boris’ first marriage. She sent Vasilko to the Daugava but Viachko, later killed
by the Germans, to Pskov. Together with the Pomeranians, she planned, more-
over, to get rid of Boris with the aim of securing the throne for her son Vladimir.
But finally the people, disaffected at foreign rule, shook off the Pomeranian
yoke with the help of the boyars and took justice into their own hands.34
The plausibility of this account depends on the extent to which Tatishchev’s
narratives, which are not found in the extant Russian chronicles or other
sources, constitute a reliable source for the Middle Ages. Did the author, when
producing his work in the 1740s, have access to materials that have since been
lost and whose contents have only been transmitted via his work?35 It used to

33  Taube, “Russische und litauische Fürsten,” pp. 416–46, 455, 491–92; Michael von Taube,
Ungern-Sternberg. Ursprung und Anfänge des Geschlechts in Livland (Tartu, 1940),
pp. 140–41. Russian princes often have several names: the prince’s name of pagan ori-
gin (e.g. Mstislav) and the Christian name at baptism (e.g. Boris). On the findings in Liv
territory of pendants with so-called tribal signs of the Riurikids, see Ēvalds Mugurēvičs,
“Piekariņi ar t.s. Rjurikoviču cilts zīmi Latvijā 11.–13. gs.,” Arheoloġija un etnogāfija 17
(1994), 76–83.
34  Vasilii N. Tatishchev, История Российская, vol. 4, pp. 352–54; vol. 3, pp. 201–04.
35  Aleksei Tolochko, “История Российская” Василия Татищева: источники и известия
(Moscow-Kiev, 2005) (Historia rossica); Mikhail B. Sverdlov, Василий Никитич
Татищев—автор и редактор “Истории Российской” (St Petersburg, 2009). Cf. Petr
S. Stefanovich, “ ‘История Российская’ В. Н. Татищева: споры продолжаются,” in
Отечественная История 2007, 3, 88–96.
70 chapter 2

be thought that the source drawn upon for this story in the History of Russia is
an extract from a now lost Polotsk chronicle. Tatishchev wrote:

This has been copied from the chronicle of Eropkin, which appears to
have been compiled in Polotsk given that it narrates much about the
Polotsk, Vitebsk, and other Lithuanian princes, although unfortunately
I did not have time to write everything out, and he [Eropkin] did not
show it to me again after that and I heard that he gave it away to make a
copy of it.36

However, it was further assumed that the extract referred to may also have
been understood as a fictional parable about Russia under the empress Anna
(1730–40). Thus Boris’ sons would symbolise the fate of the future empress
Elisabeth (1741–61), while Anna’s favourite, the Curonian Ernst Biron (1690–
1772), would take the role of Sviatokhna, with her Baltic descent, and the regent
Anna Leopoldovna (1718–46) would correspond to Sviatokhna’s son.37
Hence, it is most likely that the story about Sviatokhna does not have a his-
torical basis. The question must further be raised as to whether Tatishchev,
or his collaborators, could have written such a narrative based on the known
sources. If Tatishchev did not use the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, first printed
in 1740, then he might have obtained his information about the Russian or
Polotsk princes on the Daugava from the chronicle of Christian Kelch printed
in 1695.38 Prince Boris of Polotsk and his son Vasilii might have originated in

36  Tatishchev, История, vol. 3, p. 261.

37  Petr Mikhailovich Eropkin (c. 1698–1740) and Andrei Fedorovich Khrushchov (1691–1740)
also supplied Tatishchev with sources and were part of the circle of Artemii Petrovich
Volynskii (1689–1740), who opposed the German clique at the court during Anna’s period
in government and sympathized with Elisabeth. This circle drew up state reform plans
intended to strengthen the aristocracy (the boyars of the pamphlet?). All three were exe-
cuted in 1740 for conspiracy against Anna. They were cultivated men versed in several
languages and able to acquire knowledge of historical works on Livonia written in Latin
and German. It is also possible that Tatishchev himself made up the story, ascribing it to
other authors to conceal his role.
38  Nazarova, “Русско-латгальские контакты,” pp. 182–84, 188–89. Among the sources men-
tioned by Tatishchev are the Baltic and Prussian chronicles of Christian Kelch (1657–1710),
Peter of Dusburg (13th-14th century), Martin Cromer (d. 1589) and Albert Krantz (1448–
1517). It is thus conceivable that Tatishchev conflated prince Vissika or Vissica of Kelch
with the Viachko of the Russian sources by means of the episode relating to the conquest
of Dorpat in 1224, turning Vissewaldus into Vasilko. The motives in Henry’s Livonian chron-
icle and in the Sviatokhna story are not entirely consistent with one another, however. Cf.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 71

the legendary part of the Lithuanian chronicles from the 15th and 16th centu-
ries, which deals with the Polotsk princes of Lithuanian descent. Tatishchev’s
immediate source here might have been the chronicle of Maciej Stryjkowski
(d. 1586/93), which he held in high esteem, possibly already known to him via a
hand-written Old Russian translation. In Stryjkowski’s chronicle the narrative
of the legendary Lithuanian royal house of Polotsk appears as a chronological
link precisely before the year 1217.39
It is clear from this that the Tatishchev ‘information’ cannot be used to
compile the genealogy of the Daugava princes and that the reconstruction
produced by Michael von Taube ceases to be plausible.40 There are no writ-
ten sources on the origins of Vetseke and Vissewalde.41 The infrequent variant
of Viachko (as a shortened form of Viacheslav) found in the Russian sources
nonetheless suggests a connection with the Polotsk dynasty because that
name sporadically appears among its descendants. A Viachko is mentioned
in Novgorod in 1224,42 but so is a Prince Viachko in 1168, apparently linked to
Polotsk, along with Prince Volodar of Minsk.43
Evgeniia Nazarova has concluded that Vissewalde was not a Riurikid prince
called Vsevolod but rather either a Lettgallian or Lithuanian, or a Russian

Tatishchev, История, vol. 3, pp. 200–01, 261; vol. 4, p. 461; Christian Kelch, Liefländische
Historia oder Kurtze und eigentliche Beschreibung . . . (Frankfurt-Leipzig, 1695), pp. 55–58,
67–68. In Tatishchev’s work the Sviatokhna story is preceded by the Russian attack on
Odenpäh in 1217, which he bases on Kelch.
39  Maciej Stryjkowski, Kronika Polska, Litewska, Żmódzka i wszystkiéj Rusi, ed. Mikołaj
Malinowski, vol. 1 (Warsaw, 1846), pp. 234–36, 241–43. See Aleksandr I. Rogov, Русско-
польские культурные связи в эпоху Возрождения (Стрыйковский и его Хроника)
(Moscow, 1966), pp. 131–41; Nikolai N. Ulashchik, Введение в изучение Белорусско-
литовского летописания (Moscow, 1985), p. 142. Cf. Ioannis Długossi annales, vol. 3, pp.
224–25 (1216). The genealogy of the 13th-century Polotsk princes in the Lithuanian leto-
pisi actually reflects conditions in Polotsk and Drutsk in the second and third quarters of
the 12th century. See also Alekseev, Полоцкая земля в IХ–ХIII вв., pp. 230–33; Aleksandr
V. Rukavishnikov, “Некоторые вопросы истории Полоцкой земли домонгольского
периода,” in Русское средневековье. Источники, 2000–2001 годы, ed. Dmitrii M.
Volodikhin (Moscow, 2002), pp. 62–63.
40  See Švābe, Straumes, vol. 2, pp. 351–57; Laakmann, “Estland,” p. 240; Nazarova, “Из
истории взаимоотношений,” pp. 183–84; Nazarova, “Русско-латгальские контакты,”
p. 189.
41  Laur, “Überlegungen,” pp. 514–15; Auns, Социально-экономическая и политическая
структура, p. 17; Auns, “Acquisition,” pp. 259–60; cf. Tõnisson, Gauja-Liven, p. 172.
42  NL1, pp. 64, 268.
43  NL1, pp. 32, 220.
72 chapter 2

native to the area.44 What is certainly beyond doubt is that both Vsevolod
and Viachko were rulers connected to Polotsk at some point and considered
Christians of the Orthodox rite. Vsevolod and Viachko (Viacheslav?) cannot
be interpreted as Christian names given at baptism, but they concur well with
the Polotsk dynastic tradition in which names like Vsevolod and with the suf-
fix -slav (Briacheslav) appear.45 If one bears in mind the adjacent regions and
the thriving commerce with Polotsk, it appears quite feasible that the princes
in Latvian territory, regardless of their origin, were tied to Polotsk at least by
marriage.46 These Daugava princes can be considered part of the Russian cul-
tural sphere and political world, just as Vetseke (Viachko) was later in the ser-
vice of Novgorod. In 1224, when Viachko ruled in Dorpat, he was undoubtedly
regarded as a Russian prince in the political sense. It is therefore irrelevant for
this study whether these small states on the Daugava arose indigenously or
were set up as bases by Polotsk.
The influence of the Orthodox religion is crucial when assessing the rela-
tions between Rus’ and its neighbours. Modern historical and archaeological
research into the process of Christianization in the Baltic tends to conceive of
a local society that had accepted (elements of) Christianity to a certain degree,
but in which no ecclesiastical organization had been established. Recently,
the concept of ‘prehistoric Christians’ has been proposed47 to describe the
phenomenon. What is important here is that, unlike the impression created
in the crusading chronicles,48 there was no conflict between the ‘pagan’ and
‘Christian’ elements in religion, that is to say, ‘paganism’ was not first replaced by
‘Christianity’ prior to formal (compulsory) baptism, but rather ­supplemented.49

44  Nazarova, “Русско-латгальские контакты,” pp. 182, 190.

45  Taube, “Russische und litauische Fürsten,” pp. 397–98. Some of the individuals men-
tioned here by Michael von Taube are in fact legendary. See also Baumgarten, Généalogies,
pp. 32–33 (incorporating some legendary figures in the family tree); Sahanovich, “Полацк,”
p. 6.
46  HCL XIII.4, p. 69; XVII.3, p. 113.
47  Tõnno Jonuks and Tuuli Kurisoo, “To Be or Not To Be . . . a Christian: Some New Perspectives
on Understanding the Christianisation of Estonia,” Folklore. Electronic Journal of Folklore
55 (2013), 69, 82.
48  Linda Kaljundi, “Waiting for the Barbarians: Reconstruction of Otherness in the Saxon
Missionary and Crusading Chronicles, 11th–13th Centuries,” The Medieval Chronicle 5
(2008), 113–27.
49  Heiki Valk, “Estland im 11.-13. Jahrhundert. Neuere Aspekte aus Sicht der Archäologie,”
Forschungen zur baltischen Geschichte 3 (2008), 81–83; Roberts Spirģis, “Archaeological
Evidence on the Spread of Christianity to the Lower Daugava Area (10th–13th century),”
in Salamon, Rome, Constantinople and Newly-Converted Europe, vol. 1, pp. 689–712; Jonuks
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 73

If there was such a vague distinction between pagan and Christian, it follows
that there is even less justification for positing a pre-crusade contrast between
Catholicism and Orthodoxy in the Baltic.
The archaeological material for 11th- and 12th-century Latvia (mainly from
the river Daugava region, but also the river Gauja area) includes notable
amounts of cross-shaped pendants and similar objects, which could be tes-
timony of the spread of Christianity.50 In Gerzike, and perhaps Kokenhusen
too, there were Orthodox churches.51 The area of the findings suggesting an
Orthodox background overlaps rather well with the Russian political sphere
of influence and it is likely that the phenomenon is primarily linked with local
social elite.52 Christian attributes therefore could just as well have functioned
as status symbols. There may very well have been a quite large number of peo-
ple baptized in the Daugava area, but baptism can also be seen more as a politi-
cal than a religious act.53
As well as Gerzike and Kokenhusen, Henry’s chronicle also mentions
Orthodox Christians in Tolowa. Since this area was linked to Pskov, it follows
that Christianity there was received through Pskov, even though the degree
of dependency was weak. Baptism in Tolowa may have first occurred as an
expression of rivalry with Riga at the beginning of the 13th century, perhaps
even somewhat earlier, if this proved politically advantageous to the local
leaders. They may have been baptized in Pskov or, alternatively, Russian clerics
could have travelled to the region together with the collectors of tribute. There
may also have been baptisms in Adsel, located between Tolowa and Pskov.54
Basic Christian terminology in the modern Latvian language has been bor-
rowed from Old Russian. Words such as baznīca (<божница, church), grēks

and Kurisoo, “To Be or Not To Be,” pp. 69–98. Cf. Henrik Janson, “Pagani and Christiani:
Cultural Identity and Exclusion around the Baltic in the Early Middle Ages,” in Staecker,
Reception of Medieval Europe, pp. 171–91.
50  Mugurēvičs, “Verbreitung,” pp. 85–93.
51  HCL XIII.4, p. 70; Andris Caune and Ieva Ose, Latvijas viduslaiku mūra baznīcas 12 gs. bei-
gas—16 gs. sākums (Riga, 2010), pp. 169–70.
52  Mugurēvičs, “Verbreitung,” p. 93; Nazarova, “Православие,” pp. 203–07.
53  Auns, “Acquisition,” p. 260. The claim that the Novgorod scribe Lotysh s Gorodishcha
(Ljubov V. Stoliarova, Свод записей писцов, художников и переплетчиков древнерусских
пергаменных кодексов ХI–ХIV веков (Moscow, 2000), pp. 123–24, no. 106) mentioned
in 1270 is evidence of a wide dissemination of Orthodoxy in Latvia is unfounded, pre-
cisely because there is no link with the Lettgallians or ‘Letts’ in this context. See Laur,
“Überlegungen,” p. 507; Nazarova, “Православие,” pp. 202–203; cf. Spekke, History,
pp. 113–14; Švābe, Straumes, vol. 3, pp. 30–31.
54  Nazarova, “Православие,” pp. 205–07.
74 chapter 2

(<грехъ, sin), krusts (<крестъ, cross), pops (<попъ, pope), svētki (<святки,
feast days), zvans (<звонъ, church bell), gavēnis (<говение, fast), and others
show that the Lettgallians already had at least a rough idea of Christian prac-
tices before the Catholic missions to Üxküll and Riga.55 There can be no ques-
tion, however, of an organized Orthodox mission to Latvian territory.56
Proximity makes it likely that at least the eastern Estonians, too, were also
familiar with Russian Orthodoxy. From the 19th century at the latest, when the
question of ecclesiastical priority acquired major political significance in the
then German Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire, a number of historians
contrasted ‘violent’ Catholicization with ‘peaceful’ Orthodox missionizing in
Estonia. These assumptions are based on the fact that some basic Christian
words in Estonian are also regarded as borrowings from Old Slavonic: rist
(<крестъ, cross); raamat (<грамата, book); papp (<попъ, priest); pagan
(<поганинъ, pagan); ristima (< крестити, to baptize); paast (<постъ, fast).
On the other hand, the words pagan, rist and papp could equally be Western
loan words (derived from the Latin and Middle Low German paganus,
Christ, pape).57
Just as Catholic baptism in Livonia by one of the competing institutions
such as Riga or Lund begins to symbolize the political subjugation of the
country or the people, the predominantly political significance of baptism
also comes to light in the case of the Russian rulers when they start to bap-
tize people of Livonia. More profound differences in faith and doctrine surely
remained alien to everyone apart from the clergy. Laymen would perceive the
external differences in ritual and the daily observance of different feast days,
and other similar practices. An individual’s religious denomination served
first and foremost as a sign of political affiliation or subservience. A change in
power could therefore be accompanied by a simple ‘change in denomination’;
when new priests appeared, the baptized (or religious communities if they
existed) would change their religion accordingly, but more along the lines of
changing from the ‘Polotsk faith’ to the ‘Riga faith’ rather than from the Greek
church to the Latin church. It should not be forgotten that, whereas today
being a Christian is understood to mean an individual’s personal conviction,

55  Nazarova, “Православие,” pp. 204–05; Enn Tarvel, “Mission und Glaubenswechsel in
Estland und Livland im 11.–13. Jahrhundert aufgrund sprachlicher Quellen,” in Müller-
Wille, Rom und Byzanz im Norden, vol. 2, p. 58.
56  See Laakmann, “Estland,” p. 210; Keussler, Ausgang, p. 70; Tarvel, “Mission,” p. 65.
57  Tarvel, “Mission,” pp. 57–67; Kristiina Ross and Sven-Erik Soosaar, “Eesti vaimuliku kul­
tuuri sõnavara kujunemisest: veel kord ristimisest,” Keel ja Kirjandus 50 (2007), 769–82.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 75

the sources in the 13th century saw the subjection of a territory to the control
of the church hierarchy as an indication of Christianity.58
The type of relationship between the territory of what would be Catholic
Livonia and the Russian principalities at the end of the 12th century is there-
fore far from clear. No regular tribute is recorded in the sources for the period
around 1200 except the tribute of the Daugava Livs. However, the existence
of some kind of patron-clientele relationship is plausible for eastern parts
of Latvia. The regular military conflicts suggest that Russian princes did not
succed in creating permanent lordship in south-eastern Estonia, the contacts
between the Baltic and Russian areas were close enough to allow the media-
tion of Christian ideas and other forms of cultural impact.

2.2 Bishop Meinhard of Livonia, Polotsk, and the Mission to the Livs

In the last quarter of the 12th century the lower Daugava river was the meeting
ground of a whole range of different interests. Trade depended on the good
will of the Livs and their leaders, still obliged to pay tribute to Polotsk. The
centres of Kokenhusen and Gerzike, which controlled the Daugava crossings,
were another factor in the balance of power. The Lithuanians increased their
raids for plunder in the adjoining regions. These, what might be called, ‘indig-
enous’ groups were then joined in the second half of the 12th century by the
merchants of Gotland, Westphalia, northern Germany, and Frisia.
Accompanying the northern German merchants who came to the Daugava
was the Augustinian canon Meinhard from the monastery of Segeberg in
Holstein. As Henry’s chronicle relates, Meinhard arrived in the early 1180s
“with a band of merchants simply for the sake of Christ and only to preach”.59
Historians have drawn attention both to Meinhard’s shared social ties and
interests with the merchant class.60 It is likely that he was descended from the

58  Tiina Kala, “Rural Society and Religious Innovation: Acceptance and Rejection of
Catholicism among the Native Inhabitants of Medieval Livonia,” in Murray, Clash of
Cultures, pp. 169–90. See also Hans-Dietrich Kahl, Heidenfrage und Slawenfrage im
deutschen Mittelalter. Ausgewählte Studien 1953–2008 (Leiden-Boston, 2008) (East Central
and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450, 4).
59  HCL I.2, p. 2.
60  Johansen, “Bedeutung,” p. 6; Hellmann, “Bischof Meinhard,” pp. 19–20; Bernd Ulrich
Hucker, “Die Herkunft des Livenapostels Meinhard,” in Hellmann, Studien, p. 38; Hucker,
“Zisterzienserabt Bertold,” pp. 56–57; Kattinger, Gotländische Genossenschaft, pp. 141–42.
76 chapter 2

Bremen ministeriales and thus his familial ties meant he was acquainted with
most of the leading figures in the Livonian crusade.61
The personal nature of this religious mission has often been stressed in the
scholarship; the desire for secular rule over the Livs is said not to have emerged
until later. Archbishop Hartwig II of Bremen ordained Meinhard as bishop of
Livonia in 1186, obtaining confirmation from Rome for the new bishopric by
1188 at the latest. Meinhard’s undertaking was therefore nonetheless supported
and approved by the ecclesiastical hierarchy. But the time for such a far-reach-
ing enterprise was not propitious for Bremen. After the death of Archbishop
Siegfried (1180–84), Hartwig II (1184–1207), who was allied with Henry the Lion
and had been the duke’s notary since 1158, was ordained archbishop. During
the fighting between the Welfs and the emperor in 1189, Hartwig was forced
to flee his see. In 1192 the cathedral chapter elected as archbishop the Danish
pretender to the throne, Bishop Valdemar of Schleswig (from 1178/82), who
was himself detained by King Knud VI of Denmark from 1193 to 1206. Hartwig
was able to recover his position in 1194. This meant that the metropolitan of
Bremen had little possibility of influencing developments in Livonia during
this period.62 On various occasions at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries
Hartwig II was obliged to fight against his own vassals, the burghers of Bremen,
and Count Adolf of Holstein (d. 1203). It might be presumed that the com-
mon foes of the archbishop and the Danish king in the form of Valdemar of
Schleswig and Adolf of Holstein would serve, at certain moments, to bring the
two together. At the beginning of the 13th century, however, Hartwig came into
conflict with both the Welfs and Denmark, losing estates owned by the arch-
bishopric to both of them.63
The churches of Hamburg-Bremen and Denmark, simultaneously as col-
laborators and rivals, had conquered the southern Baltic coast by this time
and sent missions there. Both of these missionary powers now began to look
further east, towards the commercially important region of Livonia. Merchant
interests would, of course, have to be taken into account in any eastern endeav-
ours. But it would hardly be to the advantage of merchants to provoke a conflict

61  Hucker, “Herkunft”.

62  See Pitz, Papstreskript, pp. 6–7; Hellmann, “Grundlagen,” p. 10; Hellmann, “Bischof
Meinhard,” pp. 27–28; Carsten Selch Jensen, “The Nature of the Early Missionary Activities
and Crusades in Livonia, 1185–1201,” in Medieval Spirituality in Scandinavia and Europe.
A Collection of Essays in Honour of Tore Nyberg, ed. Lars Bisgaard et al. (Odense, 2001)
(OUS 234), pp. 122–23.
63  See Gaethke, “Knud IV.,” 119 (1994), 81–99.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 77

with Rus’ and its schismatic church. Nor is it plausible to argue that Meinhard’s
activities actually concealed plans for the subjection of the Russian church.64
Üxküll, a Livish village on Daugava River, became Meinhard’s base, and
he began to build a church there.65 When castles were built at both Üxküll
and Holme sometime during 1185 and 1186,66 their locations made it possible
to supervise transport on the river and its north bank in the direction of the
Latvian interior and Polotsk, as well as trade with Daugmale, the fortified trade
settlement on the opposite bank of the Daugava.67 The fords at these locations
made crossing the river possible, but the rapids prevented maritime ships from
travelling further upstream.
Meinhard died in the second half of 1196. At the end of the same year
Berthold, the former abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Loccum, was
appointed his successor and ordained bishop of Livonia. With papal approval,
he gathered a crusading army against the Livs and was killed while leading it
in the summer of 1198. Obtaining this papal approval for the Livonian crusade
would certainly not have been easy given that in 1197 a number of northern
German nobles, including Archbishop Hartwig II of Bremen, had committed
themselves to take part in the crusade of Emperor Henry VI to the Holy Land.68
Berthold was succeeded in 1199 by Bishop Albert, who would finally became
a successful leader of the Livonian crusade and who in 1201 founded the first
Livonian city, Riga, which then became the seat of the bishopric, taking over
from Üxküll.
Historians have tried to explain why and how Meinhard’s ‘peaceful’ mis-
sion had turned into an endless succession of military campaigns by the time
of Berthold and Albert. In truth, drawing such a stark contrast is not entirely
justified. Already during Meinhard’s time the pope had promised indulgences
to warriors “against the perfidious Livs”, while armed men also formed part

64  See Pitz, Papstreskript, p. 14.

65  HCL I.3, p. 2; Jānis Graudonis, “Archäologische Forschungen in Uexküll,” ZfO 44 (1995),
499–501.
66  HCL I.5–9, pp. 3–4. In a text from the second half of the 13th century only merchants are
mentioned as builders of the castles. See Marvin L. Colker, “America Rediscovered in the
Thirteenth Century?” Speculum 54 (1979), p. 723, para. 13; cf. LR, lines 215–24. According to
Henry, Meinhard owned only a fifth of the castle of Üxküll.
67  Evgeniia Nazarova, “Регион Западной Двины в эпоху смены политического влияния.
Конец ХII в.,” in Контактные зоны в истории восточной Европы: перекрестки
политических и культурных взаимовлияний, ed. Aleksandr M. Nekrasov (Moscow,
1995), pp. 75–76; Radiņš, “Some Notes,” pp. 188–89; cf. Hellmann, “Bischof Meinhard,”
pp. 22–23.
68  Hucker, “Zisterzienserabt Bertold,” pp. 39–48.
78 chapter 2

of Meinhard’s entourage.69 Meinhard’s repeated disagreements with the Livs,

quite serious according to Henry’s account, had made it necessary to use mil-
itary means to defend the positions already gained. The church of Üxküll had
fields, animals and residential buildings, a stake in the castles of Holme and
Üxküll as well as a household. The church must have obtained these posses-
sions70 from the Livs. Therefore an attempt must have been made at some
point to introduce the church’s financing system and begin levying taxes.
The Rhymed Chronicle dates the start of tax collection in Livonia precisely
to the time of Bishop Berthold.71 It was of course inevitable that its rejection
by the Livs, which was seen as a rejection of the faith, was met with the use of
force.72 The sources say nothing, on the other hand, about any conflicts with
Polotsk. It is hardly plausible that the church would have acquired its posses-
sions to the detriment of Polotsk’s interests.
Meinhard in fact began his activity in the area of influence of the Polotsk
princes, although it is extremely difficult to investigate his relationship with
them because so little is known about the history of Polotsk in this period. The
main source for the principality for the period around 1200 is the Chronicle
of Henry of Livonia, whose earlier part, based mainly on oral tradition, raises
a number of difficulties. For example, the chronicle refers in the context of
the beginning of Meinhard’s missionary work c. 1184 to the Polotsk prince
Woldemarus, i.e. Vladimir. He is again named later in the chronicle for 1206,
this time already after Henry’s presumed arrival in Livonia c. 1205.73 This prince
died suddenly in 1216. It is entirely feasible that he had governed for over thirty
years, but, on the other hand, his existence is not attested to anywhere in the
Russian sources. According to the archaeological evidence, the 12th century
was Polotsk’s cultural and economic golden age, albeit accompanied by politi-
cal fragmentation as the principality broke up into ever smaller parts (Polotsk,

69  HCL II.3, p. 9; cf. I.12, pp. 6–7; Raoul Zühlke, “Bischof Meinhard von Üxküll: ein friedlicher
Missionar? Ansätze zu einer Neubewertung. Ein quellenkundlicher Werkstattbericht,”
Hansische Geschichtsblätter 127 (2009), 101–21 cf. Marian Dygo, “Mission und Kreuzzug
in den Anfängen der Christianisierung Livlands,” in Kryžiaus karų epocha Baltijos regiono
tautų istorinėje sąmonėje. Mokslinių straipsnių rinkinys, ed. Rita Regina Trimonienė and
Robertas Jurgaitis (Šiauliai, 2007), pp. 66–84.
70  HCL II.2, pp. 8–9.
71  LR, line 527; cf. HCL II.7, p. 11 (priestly tax, 1198); cf. Hucker, “Zisterzienserabt Bertold,”
p. 49, who is clearly mistaken in making a connection between the tax and the Polotsk
tribute. The tithe was introduced in Livonia before 1207: HCL XI.3, p. 49.
72  Benninghoven, “Zur Rolle,” p. 163; Hucker, “Zisterzienserabt Bertold,” pp. 54–55; Jensen,
“Nature,” p. 129.
73  HCL I.3, p. 2; X.1, p. 32; cf. V.3, p. 16; VII.4, p. 21.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 79

Vitebsk, Minsk, Drutsk, Logoisk). The interrelated and continually changing

princes of the Iziaslavich dynasty (a local branch of the Riurikids)74 who ruled
these areas lost their wider political significance, disappearing as a result from
the Russian chronicles. In Polotsk the Veche (the town assembly) was probably
able to increase in importance at the princes’ expense.75 Its former subordi-
nate towns competed for the right to send their prince to rule in Polotsk. In
addition to potential armed conflict, the decisive role was played by the Veche
itself.
Prince Vladimir appears in at least nine or ten different contexts in the histor-
ical genealogies. According to the well-known genealogist Nikolai Baumgarten
(1867–1939), he was the son of Volodar Glebovich of Minsk, i.e. the uncle of
King Valdemar II of Denmark (1170–1241).76 No backing for this assumption
can be found in the sources, however. Polotsk’s significant decline in power,
which is also reflected in the confusion about its genealogy, explains why the
Daugava principalities appear as independent powers in Henry’s chronicle and
why Polotsk was not capable of defending its interests in Livonian territory.77
From a Russian point of view, the end of the 12th century was a difficult period
for Polotsk in terms of its external relations and/or in economic terms. One
manifestation of this is the fact that around the turn of the century its previ-
ously magnificent construction activity came to a halt.78
The genealogy and chronology of the princes of Polotsk in the second half
of the 12th century is therefore extremely confused due to this paucity in the
sources. On one occasion the Russian chronicle says that there was no prince in
the city (1185/86).79 The date of Vladimir’s ascension to power remains unclear.

74  The descendants of the daughter of the Varangian prince Rogvolod or Ragnvaldr of
Polotsk and of Grand Prince Vladimir Sviatoslavich.
75  Leonid V. Alekseev, “Полоцкая земля,” in Древнерусские княжества Х–ХIII вв.,
ed. Liubomir G. Beskrovnyi et al. (Moscow, 1975), p. 237; Dmitrii N. Aleksandrov and
Dmitrii M. Volodikhin, Борьба за Полоцк между Литвой и Русью в ХII–ХVI веках
(Moscow, 1994), pp. 17–18; cf. Dmitrii M. Volodikhin, “Еще раз о княжеской власти в
средневековом Полоцке,” in Вопросы истории 2000, 4–5, pp. 173–75; Pawel Lojka, “Der
Zerfall der Kiewer Rus und das Fürstentum Polozk (9. bis 12. Jahrhundert),” in Handbuch
der Geschichte Weißrußlands, ed. Dietrich Beyrau and Rainer Lindner (Göttingen, 2001),
pp. 77–79.
76  Baumgarten, Généalogies, pp. 32–33. See also Alekseev, Полоцкая земля в IХ–ХIII вв.,
p. 282.
77  Alekseev, “Полоцкая земля,” p. 238.
78  Alekseev, Полоцкая земля в IХ–ХIII вв., pp. 193–219.
79  NL1, pp. 37–38, 228; Лаврентьевская летопись, pp. 403–04; Georgii V. Shtykhov,
Древний Полоцк IХ–ХIII вв. (Minsk, 1975), pp. 13–14; Alekseev, Полоцкая земля в IХ–ХIII
80 chapter 2

Is Henry’s chronicle therefore mistaken in its mention of Vladimir c. 1184 inso-

far as the chronicler has projected a contemporary figure onto the past? One
hypothesis is that there might have been no prince at all in Polotsk during the
last decade of the 12th century,80 which would in turn mean that there was no
effective military force there. Polotsk and Chernigov fought together against
Smolensk c. 1195–97. Nikolai Karamzin (1766–1826) claimed on the basis of the
so-called Trinity Chronicle, which was burned during the Moscow fire of 1812,
that a certain Prince Vasilko of Polotsk had taken part in this campaign.81 The
link between Vasilko and Polotsk was evidently not based on the chronicles,
however, but was adduced by Karamzin himself.82 An unnamed Polotsk prince
invaded the territory of Lithuania in 1201; Lithuanians had previously plundered
the Lovat region, which meant having to cross Polotsk’s terrain.83 Immediately
following this the Novgorod chronicle narrates that the Novgorodians and the
men of Velikiye Luki had gone on a foray to Lettgallia,84 which may possibly
suggest the dependence of part of Lettgallian territory on Polotsk. Vladimir’s
origin and the date of his ascent to power thus remain unresolved, but we are
entitled to assume Polotsk’s relative weakness as a military power. Meanwhile
the impact of the growing strength of neighbouring Lithuania on Polotsk,
Kokenhusen, and Gerzike becomes apparent.
Having travelled to the Daugava with German merchants, Meinhard pro-
ceeded to obtain permission (licencia) from the prince of Polotsk to whom the
Livs paid tribute, before starting his missionary work and building the church
in Üxküll. The prince also gave Meinhard gifts.85 This may have occurred
c. 1184. When in 1188 Pope Clement III confirmed the bishopric of Üxküll,
which belonged to the ecclesiastical province of Bremen, it was described as
located in Ruthenia.86 Since it was the archbishop who had sent the notifi-

вв., pp. 280–82; Leonid V. Alekseev, Смоленская земля в IХ–ХIII вв. Очерки истории
Смоленщины и Восточной Белоруссии (Moscow, 1980), pp. 221–24; Nazarova, “Регион,”
pp. 77–78.
80  Rukavishnikov, “Некоторые вопросы,” pp. 57–58.
81  Nikolai M. Karamzin, История государства Российского, book 1 (Moscow, 1988), vol. 3,
p. 34, note 55. Aleksandrov and Volodikhin, Борьба, pp. 18–20 identify Vasilko with
Vladimir even though the names have different roots.
82  Ипатьевская летопись, pp. 691–92; cf. Лаврентьевская летопись, p. 413; Симеоновская
летопись, p. 37; Rukavishnikov, “Некоторые вопросы,” p. 60.
83  HCL V.3, p. 16; NL1, pp. 45, 239; Nazarova, “Ливония,” p. 68.
84  NL1, pp. 45, 239.
85  HCL I.3, p. 2.
86  LUB 1, no. 10: “Ixscolanensem episcopatum”; cf. no. 9; Schleswig-Holstein-Lauenburgische
Regesten und Urkunden, ed. Paul Hasse, vol. 1 (Hamburg-Leipzig, 1886), no. 159.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 81

cation to Rome, the diploma reflects the Bremen point of view, according to
which Üxküll was located in Rus’. For the merchants who travelled along the
Daugava to Russian towns, Üxküll was indeed the gateway to Rus’.
The fact that permission was granted by Polotsk signifies that its control of
the Livs was beyond question and that Meinhard was seen there much more
as an ally than an opponent. Obtaining permission from local rulers for mis-
sionary work was, for example, established practice in Pomerania. Moreover,
the Russians were regarded as Christians, not as pagans, and relations between
merchants and Polotsk were secure and stable. The work of Meinhard and his
aides, carried out at first to a modest extent, did not result in any changes to
existing relations. He adapted his activity to the prevalent conditions of trade
on the Daugava, which was used by German and Scandinavian merchants as
well as by Russian traders. The mutual exchange of gifts was part of diplo-
matic etiquette. Avoiding potential conflicts was surely also in the merchants’
interests.87
Therefore, Üxküll was indeed within Rus’ at this time. The older Livonian
Rhymed Chronicle says that the river Daugava comes from the land of the
Russians, that the Selonians lived next to the Russians and that the lands of the
Selonians, Livs, and Lettgallians had been in the hands of the Russians before
the foundation of the Order of the Sword Brothers. The master of the Order
had driven the Russians back to their own land.88 There is no indication during
Meinhard’s time that Polotsk’s rule over the Livs was indirectly under threat.
Their duty to pay tribute does not appear to have borne any relation to the
success or failure of the missionary enterprise.89
The construction of castles in Üxküll and Holme might have come to pose
a threat to Polotsk.90 But Meinhard’s church held only one of the shares dur-
ing building work; in Üxküll his personal share amounted to a fifth. Moreover,
according to Henry of Livonia, the castles were built for defensive purposes
against the Lithuanians. The ever more frequent and devastating Lithuanian
raids constituted a threat to all powers on the Daugava, including Polotsk. The

87  Hellmann, “Begegnungen,” p. 123; Hellmann, “Bischof Meinhard,” pp. 21–22; Jensen,
“Nature,” pp. 123–24.
88  “Selhen, Lîven, Letten lant/ wâren in der Rûzen hant”: LR, lines 139–40, 143–46, 644–
49 (quotation). The section in lines 651–86 deals specifically with the conquest of
Kokenhusen and Gerzike. Cf. Colker, “America,” p. 723, para. 13; Paul Johansen, “Das
Lettenland im Mittelalter,” ZfO 5 (1956), p. 110.
89  Hellmann, “Begegnungen,” p. 124; Hellmann, “Bischof Meinhard,” p. 20; Krötzl, “Finnen,”
p. 49.
90  HCL I.5–9, pp. 3–4; Nazarova, “Регион,” pp. 74–75.
82 chapter 2

Novgorod Chronicle mentions the first Lithuanian pillage of Pskov under the
year 1183.91 If it occasionally appears that Polotsk was on the Lithuanian side,
one must allow for the possibility that the Polotsk princes or the cliques in
power may have changed, as well as the fact that in Lithuania too there were
a number of rulers who might be on hostile terms with one another. Even the
building of the castles at a time when the church of Üxküll was still depend-
ent on the Livs did not therefore necessarily signify opposition to Polotsk.
Meinhard’s activity did not affect the interests of the Polotsk, Vitebsk, and
Smolensk merchants and their unrestricted access to the sea.92 In the trade
treaties from the 13th century all Russian merchants were granted the right
to call at other Baltic Sea harbours. The ability to find protection from the
Lithuanian raids was generally advantageous to trade.
Another subject in its own right is the creation of a new basis for inter-
faith relations in Liv and Latvian territory. Bishop Dionisii of Polotsk died in
1184; he was succeeded by Nikolai the Greek, the former bishop of Rostov.93 A
contentious attitude towards Catholicism might indeed be expected of a prel-
ate of Byzantine origin, but he was hardly in a position to influence princely
politics. On the other hand, there is no confirmation in the sources for the
argument that the Roman curia had already seen the possibility of extending
Meinhard’s missions to Orthodox regions.94 The location of the new bishopric
“in Rus’” could potentially have been linked to the other meagre knowledge of
Rus’ available in Rome and raised the hope that the bishopric based at Üxküll
would be able to enlarge its sphere of influence. But such a hope is nowhere
in evidence in the confirmation letter from Pope Clement III cited above, and
it is doubtful whether such a prospect ever held practical importance for the
churches of Bremen or Üxküll, let alone the Roman curia.
If one were to see any influence at all by the papacy on missionary activ-
ity in Livonia under Meinhard, then one may perhaps find it in the politics of
the Danish kings. The Danish annals speak of a crusade led by King Knud VI
(1182–1202) against Estonia in 1196 or 1197.95 Danish knights also took part in
a crusade to the Holy Land in 1197, as did Archbishop Hartwig of Bremen and
Emperor Henry VI. One of Meinhard’s most important collaborators was the

91  NL1, pp. 37, 227.

92  According to Nazarova, “Регион,” pp. 76–77; Nazarova, “Ливония,” pp. 67–68.
93  Shchapov, Государство, p. 207.
94  Hellmann, “Anfänge,” pp. 28–29; cf. Pitz, Papstreskript, p. 14.
95  Annales Danici, pp. 92–93, 151, 165; Annales Suecici medii aevi. Svensk medeltidsannalis-
tik, ed. Göte Paulsson (Lund, 1974) (Bibliotheca historica Lundensis 32), p. 154; Tarvel,
“Dänische Ostseepolitik,” pp. 54–56.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 83

Cistercian Theodoric (d. 1219), who may have visited the curia on more than
one occasion with the Danish Archbishop Anders Sunesen (c. 1167–1228) of
Lund during his stay in Rome.96 Henry’s chronicle relates in connection with
Theodoric’s Rome visit that the pope decided that “they [the Livs] ought to be
forced to observe the faith which they had freely promised”, that “already then
the same bishop”, with the duke of Sweden, the Germans, and the Gotlanders,
had launched an offensive against the Curonians, but was driven by storm
onto the coast of Vironia, where they (the Swedes etc.) plundered for three
days.97 The army was apparently led by the dux Suecie, most likely the Swedish
Birger Jarl Brosa (d. 1202). In fact, “the same bishop” seems to mean the still
future bishop Theodoric.98 Scholarly views diverge as to whether two separate
campaigns are at issue, a Swedish and a Danish one,99 or whether Henry, who
learned of these events much later through hearsay and consistently played
down Denmark’s participation in developments in Livonia,100 is silent about
the king’s participation.101 After the death of Knut Eriksson (1195/96), the rep-
resentative of the rival dynasty, Sverker Karlsson, who was closely related to
the Danish kings, was elected Sweden’s ruler. A joint campaign by Sweden and
Denmark during 1196–97 is quite feasible therefore.102
In this context, Paul Johansen considers it accurate to speak of a major
attack by Rus’ against the peoples living on the eastern Baltic coast.103 The
Novgorodians raided Tavastia in Finland for booty in 1186; men from Pskov
killed “[some] Chud people of the coast” in 1190, after which the Chuds towed
their seven boats “along the rapids”, in other words perhaps on the river Narva,

96  Rebane, “Denmark,” p. 185.

97  HCL I.12–13, pp. 6–7.
98  Rebane, “Denmark,” p. 179; Jensen, “Nature,” pp. 130–31; Lindkvist, “Crusades,” p. 121.
99   Rebane, “Denmark,” p. 185; Hucker, “Zisterzienserabt Bertold,” pp. 48–49; Tarvel,
“Dänische Ostseepolitik,” p. 56; Nils Blomkvist, “Ostseemacht und Mittelmeererbe.
Geschichtsschreibung und Aufbau einer Nation im mittelalterlichen Schweden,” in
Beiträge zur Geschichte des Ostseeraumes. Vorträge der ersten und zweiten Konferenz
der SKHO, ed. Horst Wernicke (Hamburg, 2002) (Greifswalder historische Studien 4),
pp. 214–16.
100  Anti Selart, “Iam tunc . . . The Political Context of the First Part of the Chronicle of Henry
of Livonia,” The Medieval Chronicle 5 (2008), 197–209.
101  Ole Fenger, ‘Kirker rejses alle vegne’ 1050–1250 (Copenhagen, 1989) (Gyldendal og Politikens
Danmarkshistorie 4), p. 239.
102  Tore Nyberg, “Kreuzzug und Handel in der Ostsee zur dänischen Zeit Lübecks,” in Lübeck
1226. Reichsfreiheit und frühe Stadt, ed. Olof Ahlers et al. (Lübeck, 1976), pp. 173–206, at
pp. 179–80.
103  Johansen, Nordische Mission, pp. 96–99.
84 chapter 2

“to the lake” (Lake Peipus). The following year the Novgorodians together with
the Karelians launched an attack on Tavastia by boat. After that Prince Iaroslav
Vladimirovich of Novgorod surprisingly made an agreement with Polotsk to
undertake a joint offensive against the Chuds or the Lithuanians, and then
in winter, together with forces from Novgorod and Pskov, they captured first
Dorpat and somewhat later Odenpäh in Ugaunia (Estonia).104 Knud VI’s earlier
military campaign against Finland in 1191 was, according to Johansen, retalia-
tion for these actions. However, the sources do not permit us to draw any con-
nection between the Tavastia and the Ugaunia offensives of Novgorod, and the
initial indecisiveness about whether Lithuania or Estonia would be the target
of the attack indicates that these campaigns were purely plundering raids. The
initial stage of the Livonian crusades did not bring any conflict with Rus’.

2.3 The Crusade in Livonia under Bishop Albert of Riga (1199–1229)

When the emperor Henry VI (1165–97) died in 1197, Otto IV (1175/76–1218),

the son of Duke Henry the Lion (1129–95), and Philip (1177–1208), the son of
Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa (c. 1122–90), were elected German kings the
following year. Additionally, Henry VI’s own son Frederick II (1194–1250) had
been elected king as a child when Henry was still alive. The rivalry among the
claimants and papal recognition of the imperial coronation became the main
feature of international diplomacy in early 13th-century Europe.
In northern Germany this conflict initially brought about an alliance
between Otto IV and King Valdemar II of Denmark. One of the consequences
of this alliance was to limit the capacity of the archbishopric of Hamburg-
Bremen as a crusading power in the Baltic, since its incumbents became
embroiled in the disputes over the imperial succession. When Archbishop
Hartwig died in November 1207, the Bremen chapter reelected the Danish
king’s erstwhile enemy, Bishop Valdemar of Schleswig, as the new archbishop.
The following year the Hamburg chapter, whose territorial lord was the Danish
king, proceeded to appoint the Bremen cathedral provost Burchard as arch-
bishop, but he soon stepped down. The pope declared the Bremen election
invalid, but Valdemar of Schleswig refused to accept the papal decision. He
fled from Rome following his excommunication, and, with the help of King
Philip, took up his position in Bremen. When Philip was murdered in the sum-
mer of 1208, Otto became the confirmed imperial pretender, whereupon he
prepared to recover his royal power in Nordalbingia. Otto and the northern

104  N L1, pp. 38–40, 228–31.

Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 85

German rulers waged war together on Denmark.105 Archbishop Valdemar was

forced to leave Bremen in 1209, but returned shortly later. In 1214–15 the Danish
king was victorious in fighting against the northern German nobles and in 1217
Valdemar of Schleswig (d. 1236) renounced Bremen once and for all. Gerhard
of Oldenburg (d. 1219), allied with Denmark, had been elected archbishop in
1210 and he was now formally recognized.
The Danish church was led at the time by Anders Sunesen, the archbishop
of Lund. As the primate of Sweden, he was in a position to interfere also in the
affairs of the church in Finland. In 1206, before the start of a Danish campaign
against Ösel, he was granted the right to appoint bishops in the surrounding
pagan regions.106 At the beginning of the 13th century Denmark was, without
doubt, the great power in the Baltic. The initiatives of Meinhard, Berthold, and
Albert belonged in their initial stages in the same context as the Danish cru-
sades against the pagans along the eastern Baltic coast. Moreover, it may be
surmised that the Danish king laid claim to Livonia and Estonia as belonging
to his area of influence even at the beginning of Albert’s activity. Denmark was
able to take control of the port of Lübeck, allowing the king to oversee trade
with Livonia. Albert approached King Knud VI of Denmark as early as 1199.
This did not by any means signify the division of areas of influence, however.
There could be no true equivalence between a missionary bishop with no real
power and the most powerful ruler in the region. Albert could probably rely on
the king’s good will, which itself may have entailed recognition of the king’s
hegemony.107

105  Bernd Ulrich Hucker, Kaiser Otto IV. (Hanover, 1990) (MGH Schriften 34), pp. 223–30;
cf. idem, “Die imperiale Politik Kaiser Ottos IV. im baltischen Raum und ihre personel-
len und materiellen Grund[l]agen,” in Friedland, Visby-Colloquium, pp. 42–49; Gaethke,
“Knud IV.,” 120 (1995), 9–24.
106  Rebane, “Archbishop,” p. 27; Tore Nyberg, “Skandinavien und die Christianisierung des
südöstlichen Baltikums,” in La cristianizzazione della Lituania, ed. Paulius Rabikauskas
(Vatican City, 1989) (Pontificio Comitato di Scienze Storiche. Atti e documenti 2),
p. 239; Torben K. Nielsen, “The Missionary Man: Archbishop Anders Sunesen and the
Baltic Crusade, 1206–21,” in Murray, Crusade and Conversion, pp. 100–03, 110–13; Torben
K. Nielsen, “Archbishop Anders Sunesen and Pope Innocent III: Papal Privileges and
Episcopal Virtues,” in Archbishop Absalon and His World, ed. Karsten Friis-Jensen and Inge
Skovgaard-Petersen (Roskilde, 2000), pp. 113–32.
107  For the different opinions, see Skyum-Nielsen, Kvinde, pp. 276–79, 281–85; Benninghoven,
Orden, pp. 37–38; Albert Bauer, “Bischof Albert von Riga,” ZfO 8 (1959), 80–81; Fenger, Kirker,
pp. 239–40; Tore Nyberg, “The Danish Church and Mission in Estonia,” Nordeuropaforum
1 (1998), 67. On relations between Lübeck and Denmark, see Kattinger, Gotländische
86 chapter 2

Early in 1206 King Valdemar II, Anders Sunesen, and Bishop Nicholas of
Schleswig (1192/1209–33), also the king’s chancellor, went on crusade to Ösel. A
new castle was built there, although it had to be surrendered when the Danish
position later became highly insecure. The army returned with the king to
Denmark, but Anders Sunesen, who was one of the most cultivated men of his
time, and Nicholas of Schleswig stayed on. They spent the winter with their
entourages in Riga108—coinciding with Bishop Albert’s absence—where they
imparted doctrinal teaching.109 Apart from these pious objectives, this sojourn
also appears to have served as a demonstration of Danish supremacy. Thus
Sunesen later represented the Danish king in Reval. The king also had preten-
tions to control the south-eastern Baltic: some years afterwards the Danes also
attacked Prussia.110
The archbishopric of Lund also had certain interests in Sweden. Sverker
Karlsson had come to the throne after the death of Knut Eriksson in 1196. He
was descended from the rival lineage related to the Danish monarchy through
marriage. The other pretender, the minor Erik Knutsson, obtained support
from Norway. In 1204–05 Erik Knutsson led a revolt in Sweden against Sverker,
who fled to Denmark. At the Battle of Lena in 1208 the Danish army under
Anders’ brother, Bishop Peder Sunesen of Roskilde (d. 1214), was defeated, and
Sverker and Archbishop Valerius of Uppsala were forced to remain in exile
in Denmark. After a further Danish defeat in 1210 and the death of Sverker,
Valdemar of Denmark and Erik of Sweden agreed peace, with the latter mar-
rying Valdemar’s sister. This context helps to explain Lund’s influence on the
Christianization of Finland. Bearing in mind the intermittently subordinate
position of the archbishop of Uppsala to Lund and the dynastic background
to the dispute for the Swedish throne, the mission to Finland represented a
joint undertaking between Lund and Uppsala rather than an attempt to sub-
ject Finland to Lund at Uppsala’s expense.111
After this period of warfare in northern Germany, the Danish king con-
tinued the conquest of Estonia in 1219 by attacking Reval. His vassal and ally
Count Albert of Holstein (and Orlamünde, d. 1245) was already in Livonia

Genossenschaft, pp. 157–58; Rainer Herrmann, “Lübeck und die Päpste (1201–1267),”
Zeitschrift des Vereins für Lübeckische Geschichte und Altertumskunde 75 (1995), 9–52.
108  Nielsen, “Missionary Man,” pp. 103–10.
109  H CL X.13, pp. 32–33; XI.1, pp. 43–44; Annales Danici, pp. 97, 151. It is a matter of dispute
whether the king personally took part in the campaign.
110  Tarvel, “Dänische Ostseepolitik,” pp. 55–56.
111  Nyberg, “Kreuzzug,” p. 184; Rebane, “Archbishop,” p. 29; Tarvel, “Dänische Ostseepolitik,”
pp. 54–55.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 87

d­ uring 1217–18. The pope had granted Count Albert approval at the beginning
of 1217 allowing the count’s vassals who had taken crusading vows to the Holy
Land to go to Livonia instead.112 However, soon a violent disagreement erupted
between King Valdemar II and Bishop Albert. The Danish king claimed sov-
ereignty over the whole of Estonia and Livonia. The Rigan camp refused to
recognize this, giving rise to one of the central motive forces in Livonian his-
tory over the following decades: the conflict between Denmark and the other
powers in Livonia, itself further complicated by the already apparent differ-
ences between Bishop Albert and the Sword Brothers.113 The church in Livonia
had emerged as a force to be taken seriously over the course of the preceding
twenty years or so. It was capable, despite the internal conflicts, of resisting
the ambitions of the Danish king in Livonia. Bishop Albert of Riga found back-
ing against Lund and his own mother church in Bremen from the archbish-
ops of Magdeburg.114 He may also have received support from secular rulers
in Germany. For example, Bernd Ulrich Hucker sees Livonia as the ‘crusading
ground’ of Otto IV. Thus Bishop Philip of Ratzeburg (d. 1215), a follower of Otto
IV, had gone to Livonia after the latter’s excommunication in 1210. Charters
issued by Otto when he was already excommunicated enabled the military
order founded in Livonia, the Sword Brothers, to secure for itself the Estonian
lands of Sackala and Ugaunia in 1212 at the expense of local bishops.115 Livonia’s
internal conflicts also included the supposed plan of the nobleman Bernard
of Lippe (c. 1140–1224) to set up a hereditary secular kingdom in Livonia
and Estonia. This was at odds with the plans of both Bishop Albert and the
Danish king. At the same time, Bernard’s son, Archbishop Gerhard of Bremen

112  D D 1/5, no. 101. Cf. also DD 1/5, no. 61.

113  H CL XXIII.2, pp. 154–56; XXIII.9–11, 164–69; XXIV.1–4, pp. 169–74; XXV.1–2, pp. 177–81;
XXVIII.1, pp. 199–200; Arnoldi Chronica V.30, p. 212; Annales Danici, p. 105; Annales
Suecici, pp. 255, 259; Johansen, Nordische Mission, pp. 94–103; Benninghoven, Orden,
p. 154; Kattinger, Gotländische Genossenschaft, pp. 182–83. See also Skyum-Nielsen, Kvinde,
pp. 279–81; Evgeniia L. Nazarova, “Дания в наступлении крестоносцев в Восточной
Прибалтике (1219 год),” in От Древней Руси к России нового времени. Сборник статей
к 70-летию Анны Л. Хорошкевич, ed. Valentin L. Ianin et al. (Moscow, 2003), pp. 438–41.
On the conflicts between the bishops and the military orders in Livonia, see Jähnig, “Der
Deutsche Orden”.
114  Hucker, “Imperiale Politik,” pp. 52–53; LUR, nos 76, 86, 175a.
115  H CL XXIII.8, p. 163; Hucker, Kaiser Otto, pp. 119, 179–87, 556; Bernd Ulrich Hucker, “Die
Chronik Arnolds von Lübeck als ‘Historia Regum,’” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des
Mittelalters 44 (1988), 98–119; cf. Bauer, “Bischof Albert,” pp. 81–82.
88 chapter 2

(c. 1190–1258), never gave up in his attempts to regain the bishopric of Riga as
his suffragan, which had meanwhile been exempted by the pope.116
The attack on Wiek in 1220 led by King Johan Sverkersson of Sweden, who
had succeeded to the throne in 1216 after the death of his rival Erik Knutsson,
and his bishops was much more a challenge to Riga than to Denmark. The
Swedes appear to have had good relations with the Danes in Estonia.117 In May
1223 King Valdemar was taken prisoner by Count Henry of Schwerin. The king’s
imprisonment and the subsequent defeat at the Battle of Bornhöved in 1227
led to the collapse of Denmark’s supremacy in the Baltic countries, including
in Livonia.
The attempt to find a solution to all these conflicts resulted in the delegation
of a papal legate to Livonia at the request of Bishop Albert. Pope Honorius III
appointed Bishop William of Modena (d. 1251), his former vice-chancellor. The
legate had arrived in Livonia by June of 1225 at the latest. William had been
appointed legate for Livonia and Prussia, Holstein, and the “Baltic islands”.118
In the autumn following the legate’s arrival a war broke out in Estonia
between the Rigans and the Danes over Vironia. According to Henry’s chron-
icle, its instigators were the vassals of the bishop of Leal (renamed Dorpat in
1235 after the actual location of the cathedral) at Odenpäh and the elders of
Vironia. To resolve the conflict William of Modena, as arbitrator, brought the
lands of Vironia, Jerwia, and Wiek under his temporary control under threat
of ecclesiastical punishment. Having proved incapable, however, of solving
the conflict before his departure, he later delegated his powers to his chap-
lain John. Even while William was still waiting for an opportunity to leave,
Johannes von Dolen, a vassal of the bishop of Leal (Dorpat), began the con-
quest of Vironia. In the summer of 1227 the Rigans occupied northern Estonia
and also seized Reval after besieging it. Both the chaplain John and the Danes
then left the country, and in northern Estonia the Sword Brothers consoli-
dated their power.119 The legate’s task had been aimed, within the scope of his

116  Paul Johansen, “Lippstadt, Freckenhorst und Fellin in Livland. Werk und Wirkung
Bernhards II. zur Lippe im Ostseeraum,” in Westfalen–Hanse–Ostseeraum, ed. Franz
Petri (Münster, 1955) (Veröffentlichungen des Provinzialinstituts für westfälische Landes-
und Volkskunde Reihe I, 7), pp. 95–160; Bernd Ulrich Hucker, “Liv- und estländische
Königspläne?” in Hellmann, Studien, pp. 65–106.
117  H CL XXIV.3, pp. 172–73; Nyberg, “Kreuzzug,” pp. 189–94.
118  Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, pp. 45–48, 73–88, 133–34, 414–19.
119  See the sometimes rather hypothetical account of events in Paul Johansen, Die Estlandliste
des Liber census Daniae (Copenhagen-Reval, 1933), pp. 704–10.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 89

­ owers, at s­ olving the Danish-Rigan conflict.120 On no account did it repre-

p
sent an attempt to establish an ecclesiastical quasi-state structure in northern
Europe which could then serve the curia as a base from which to coordinate a
policy aimed at the subjection of Rus’.121

2.3.1 The Rigan Church and the Daugava Principalities

For Bishop Albert, who was from the same milieu and region as the other bish-
ops of Livonia, that is to say the northern German ministeriales, the depen-
dence of the Daugava estuary region on his pagan and schismatic neighbours
was not a new development. The small bishopric had to find a way of peace-
fully coexisting as far as possible with its more powerful neighbours, since,
prior to the foundation of the Order of the Sword Brothers in c. 1202, it was
otherwise reliant on the help of the crusaders who, for the most part, were
there only temporarily. Peace meant the opportunity to trade, which the
church’s economic well-being also depended upon. The more or less stable
peace guaranteed the militarily weak church its existence. The Christians not
only made peace with the local pagans in the face of their common enemy—
the Lithuanians—but also joined in alliances with them. The peace agreed
with the Curonians in 1201 was, “as is the pagan custom”, sealed with a blood
sacrifice.122 The following year peace was also concluded more gentilium with
the Semgallians,123 later evolving into a military alliance. Following defeat at
the hands of the Lithuanians in 1208, the leaders of Riga are still supposed to
have decided no longer to fight with one group of pagans against the other
in future.124 In the diplomatic practice of Rus’ and its western neighbours it
was, moreover, acceptable to agree treaties according to the Russian way, by

120  Mihkel Mäesalu, “Päpstliche Gewalt im Kreuzzugsgebiet: Gründete Wilhelm von Modena
in Estland einen ‘Pufferstaat’?” Forschungen zur baltischen Geschichte 6 (2011), 11–30;
Mäesalu, “A Crusader Conflict,” pp. 233–46.
121  As argued by Jaakkola, Suomen varhaiskeskiaika, pp. 215, 220–23; Michael von Taube,
“Internationale und kirchenpolitische Wandlungen im Ostbaltikum und Russland
zur Zeit der deutschen Eroberung Livlands (12. und 13. Jahrhundert),” Jahrbücher für
Geschichte Osteuropas 3 (1938), 22–26.
122  H CL V.2–3, p. 16.
123  H CL VI.5, p. 18; cf. VII.1, p. 19. Cf. Rasa Mažeika, “Of Cabbages and Knights: Trade and Trade
Treaties with the Infidel on the Northern Frontier, 1200–1390,” Journal of Medieval History
20 (1994), 71–72.
124  H CL IX.2, p. 26; X.10, pp. 40–41; XII.2–3, pp. 58–60.
90 chapter 2

kissing the cross.125 There was a continual presence of pagans in Riga126 solely
as a consequence of the commercial importance acquired by the new city in
such a short space of time. There were even pagans among Bishop Meinhard’s
personal staff: the pope had granted Meinhard permission to allow pagans to
bring him food when sermonizing among them.127
One would expect therefore that if the paganism of the ‘other’ side was not
an obstacle to the formation of alliances then this would be even less problem-
atic in the case of the Christian Russians. Yet difficulties soon came to light in
Bishop Albert’s relations with Polotsk. The prince of Polotsk “unexpectedly”
invaded Livonia in 1203, attacking the castle of Üxküll. The Livs paid a ran-
som to free themselves from the encirclement. When the prince decided to
attack the castle of Holme afterwards, its archers injured so many horses that
the ‘Russians’ did not dare to try to cross the Daugava to the island and left.128
Prince Wiscewalde of Gerzike also came with the Lithuanians as far as Riga; he
robbed the castles of their flocks and took two priests prisoner.129 The chroni-
cle does not give the impression that these campaigns by Polotsk and Gerzike
took place simultaneously. The episodes are nonetheless recounted one after
the other and may allude to collaboration between the princes.
The motives for the Polotsk military campaign of 1203 have been accounted
for in different ways by historians. The chronicler Arnold of Lübeck (d. 1211/14)
relates that:

the Russian prince of Polotsk at one time tried to collect tribute from
these Livs, which the bishop [Albert] refused to let him do. He therefore
launched heavy attacks on the country and the city. But God in his grace
always protected His family in need.130

It is for this reason that scholars have identified the cause of the attack in the
failure to collect tribute from the Livs. The Livs, now already paying the church

125  Catherine Squires, Die Hanse in Novgorod: Sprachkontakte des Mittelniederdeutschen mit
dem Russischen mit einer Vergleichsstudie über die Hanse in England (Cologne-Weimar-
Vienna, 2009) (Niederdeutsche Studien 53), pp. 86–113.
126  H CL IX.14, p. 32.
127  L UB 3, no. 10a.
128  H CL VII.4, p. 21.
129  H CL VII.5, p. 22; cf. HCL VIII.1, pp. 23–24.
130  Arnoldi Chronica V.30, p. 212: “Siquidem rex Rucie de Plosceke de ipsis Livonibus quan-
doque tributum colligere consueverat, quod ei episcopus negabat. Unde sepius graves
insultus ipsi terre et civitati sepe dicte faciebat. Sed Deus adiutor in oportunitatibus suos
semper protegebat.”
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 91

taxes, were not paying any tribute and the old system by which it had been
handed over no longer worked, with the result that the prince of Polotsk came
with his army to collect it. The bishop of Riga, as lord of the Livs, was either
unable to pay the tribute himself or did not wish to from fear that the relation-
ship of subservience to the prince entailed by tribute could then extend to
the person of the bishop.131 The modern biographer of Bishop Albert, Gisela
Gnegel-Waitschies, has broadened the issue of the tribute into a directly con-
stitutional question. The tithe introduced by Albert for the Livs had not only
affected payment of the tribute to Polotsk; it also demonstrated the desire to
establish a new principality in the region.132 It must indeed be recognized in
this context that the bishop of Riga had developed a certain degree of control
over the Livs, albeit shaky, by the fifth year of Albert’s episcopate, and the first
signs were emerging of a new state not prepared to pay heed to the interests of
the princes of Polotsk.133
During fighting against the Livs in 1205 the Rigan troops reached the castle
of Ascheraden (modern Aizkraukle, Latvia), which they burned down and
captured. The “Latin pilgrims” were then only three miles from Kokenhusen,
whose prince Vetseke sent a messenger to ask the bishop for an escort, resulting
in the signing of a peace treaty with Riga.134 Historians have explained these
events firstly with the hypothesis that Viachko had taken part in Polotsk’s cam-
paign two years earlier—for which there is no evidence in the sources—and
he now feared that Albert, who had reached the Daugava with a strong army
of pilgrims, would take revenge.135 The real threat posed to Viachko by Riga’s
expanding zone of control is also cited as a possible cause.136 On the other
hand, for Albert peace meant establishing safe borders with his only Christian
(albeit schismatic) neighbour.
Early in 1206 Bishop Albert sent Theodoric, then abbot of the Cistercian
monastery of Dünamünde (founded in 1205), as emissary to Vladimir of Polotsk
bearing gifts and “wishing to acquire the friendship and intimacy . . . which he
had shown to his predecessor, Bishop Meinhard”. However, Lithuanian ­bandits

131  Keussler, Ausgang, p. 14; Heinrich Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs von Lettland und
seiner Zeit,” Beiträge zur Kunde Estlands 18 (1932–34), 58; Hellmann, Lettenland, p. 122;
Nazarova, “Ливония,” p. 68; Radiņš, “Some Notes,” p. 189; cf. Hellmann, “Begegnungen,”
pp. 125–26; Kaspar Kolk, “Lüübeki Arnold. Liivimaa pööramisest,” in Tuna. Ajalookultuuri
ajakiri 2004, 1 (22), 70–83; 2 (23), 37–57.
132  Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert, pp. 69–70.
133  Rebane, “From Fulco to Theoderic,” pp. 59–60.
134  H CL IX.10, pp. 30–31; cf. XI.8, pp. 55–56.
135  Keussler, Ausgang, p. 17.
136  Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert, p. 73; Benninghoven, Orden, p. 71.
92 chapter 2

(latrunculi) robbed the abbot and his entourage along the way. In Polotsk it
turned out that Liv emissaries had already sought the prince’s help against the
Germans. They blamed the bishop for the violence and called the “yoke of the
faith” an excessive burden. This alludes to the severity of the duty to pay church
taxes, particularly if this was on top of the tribute to Polotsk, although it is not
possible to show either payment or non-payment of the tribute at this spe-
cific time. Under the influence of the complaints from the Livs, the prince of
Polotsk failed to confirm the desired peace to Abbot Theodoric.137 Theodoric
instead learned that the Livs and Polotsk planned to act jointly against Riga.
He managed to send a message to Riga, upon which some crusaders and Albert
delayed their planned departure westwards.138 When the abbot and the other
emissaries returned to Riga, Vladimir sent his envoys with them with the inten-
tion that they act as arbiters in the conflict between the Livs and the bishop.
It can be gathered from the account that the Russians were in Kokenhusen,
from where a certain deacon Stephen of Polotsk was sent to Riga, together
with Theodoric, to invite Albert to a meeting on the river Ogre. At the same
time, the Russians began to raise an army, inviting the Livs and the Lettgallians
to join them, which the latter declined.139 Albert cancelled the meeting on
the Ogre, claiming that, although he was willing to receive the envoys from
Polotsk, nowhere was it customary for a prince himself to go to meet such
men. According to Henry, the meeting was in any case merely a ruse to lure the
bishop from the city so as to harm him.140 After the failure of the arbitration,
the Livs gathered together an army with the Lithuanians but were defeated
by the Rigans and their allies at the Battle of Holme in 1206.
The sources give the impression that the bishop was trying to prevent the
Livs receiving support from Polotsk in their conflict with the church of Riga,
but Theodoric’s embassy should not be understood as a refusal by Riga to pay
tribute on behalf of the Livs. Albert simply wanted an agreement of the kind
that had been possible when Meinhard was alive and intended to leave the
country without waiting to see if any difficulties arose.141 The willingness of
the Livs to join Polotsk’s army was motivated by their desire to rid themselves
of Riga’s power over them. However, it may also—unlike the Lettgallians—
indicate their former duty to provide military service to the Russian princes.

137  H CL X.1, pp. 32–33. The robbery also allowed Henry to justify Theodoric’s failure since
without bringing any gifts Theodoric could hardly expect concessions from the prince.
138  H CL X.2, pp. 33–34.
139  H CL X.3, pp. 34–35.
140  H CL X.4, p. 35.
141  Bauer, “Bischof Albert,” p. 79; cf. Bauer, “Livlandkreuzzug,” p. 28.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 93

The attempt by the Livs to obtain the support of the Polotsk prince in turn
indicates a willingness on their part to pay tribute. Insofar as Vladimir set the
date and time of the meeting and sent his representatives there, he was act-
ing like a judge in an argument between subordinates. This evidently reflected
earlier practice on the lower Daugava. Albert, on the other hand, who could
count on the support of two castles, the city of Riga, the Sword Brothers, and
the crusaders, felt strong enough in his position to act as an independent ruler.142
Meanwhile, Henry’s chronicle portrays the Livs, not Polotsk, as the root of all
evil.143 The castle of Holme had been taken from them now so that they could
never again call up the “Russians and pagans” against the Christians.144 Polotsk
must certainly have considered it its duty to protect the Livs from new bur-
dens, which was precisely what Vladimir was now trying to enforce.
After the victory against the Livs at Holme, Albert and the crusaders left the
country. Vladimir together with the neighbouring princes then completed the
deployment of the army previously under way and began to lay siege to Holme,
although the Lettgallians still repeatedly refused to serve in his army. After an
eleven-day siege, Vladimir, who feared another landing by the crusaders, with-
drew without having captured the castle.145 Polotsk had failed in its attempt to
recover its effectively lost position of power along the lower Daugava.
Early the following year, in 1207, when Albert returned to the Daugava with
the crusaders, Prince Viachko of Kokenhusen arrived in Riga with his reti-
nue. After extensive negotiations, he asked, according to Henry’s chronicle,
for help against the Lithuanians, offering Albert half of his land and its castle
at Kokenhusen in return. Having made this promise, the treaty was agreed.146
There is consensus among scholars that the danger posed by Lithuania, which
apparently forced Viachko to agree such a treaty, was real. The interests of trade
too required that something be done to ward off Lithuanian incursions. The
existence of two principalities with small hinterlands in the Daugava region
would have hardly been possible without the profits brought by trade. Albert
himself needed support against the Lithuanians.147 However, Kokenhusen

142  Keussler, Ausgang, pp. 17–19; Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs,” p. 58; Hellmann,
Lettenland, pp. 122–24; Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert, pp. 76–80; Benninghoven,
Orden, pp. 71–73; Nazarova, “Ливония,” p. 69.
143  H CL X.8, pp. 37–39.
144  H CL X.9, p. 39.
145  H CL X.12, pp. 41–42.
146  H CL XI.2, p. 48.
147  Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs,” p. 59; Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert, p. 82;
Benninghoven, Orden, p. 86; Nazarova, “Ливония,” p. 70.
94 chapter 2

was simultaneously under threat from Riga. The treaty agreed with the bishop
was manifestly unequal. The danger inherent in it was demonstrated by the
events of 1208, when the men of the knight Daniel of Lennewarden, a vassal
of Bishop Albert, unexpectedly captured Kokenhusen. Although they “did not
dare to kill the Russians because they, too, were Christians”, they pursued one
part into flight and another they took prisoner. Following pressure from Albert,
Viachko was released and was reinstated with his castle and his looted posses-
sions. Furthermore, he was given soldiers and masons in compliance with the
earlier agreement. This does indeed show an attempt by the bishop to take
possession of half of the castle of Kokenhusen. The bishop’s men did not defer
to the prince of Kokenhusen and some of them were killed by the Russians.
The booty was sent by Viachko, together with a call to arms against Riga, to
Vladimir in Polotsk. He was already in the process of raising an army when
it transpired that Albert and the crusaders, contrary to all expectations, had
still not left that year. When the Russians heard this, they and the Lettgallians
and Selonians living there burned the castle of Kokenhusen to the ground and
fled, “each one on his own way”. Viachko left somewhere in the direction of
Rus’.148 Those fleeing were pursued: any Lettgallians and Selonians (obliged to
pay tribute to Viachko) found and some Russians were killed as traitors.149
It appears that Daniel’s attack did not reflect Albert’s policy. It was either
related to border disputes or a personal interest of this powerful vassal that
did not coincide with the bishop’s interests.150 But Albert certainly made use
of the situation to take control of the castle. It is not known where Viachko
went when he surrendered defence of the castle. He may have put himself and
his retinue at the service of another Russian prince or principality. All that is
known is that he was in the service of Novgorod in 1223.
It is notable that religious differences do not come to light in Henry’s nar-
rative of these events. Undoubtedly this was a clash between two powers with
rather different political and cultural customs, but not one between the Eastern
and Western churches. At stake was the expansion and loss of a local position
of power. Hence, the Kokenhusen Russians were not killed because they were
Christians, unlike the pagans. Viachko spent Easter in Riga with Bishop Albert
as an honoured noble guest during the peace negotiation in 1207. One must
assume that he took part in the cycle of church services during his stay.

148  H CL XI.8–9, pp. 55–58.

149  H CL XII.1, p. 58.
150  Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs,” pp. 57–58, 68; Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert,
p. 85; Benninghoven, Orden, p. 87; Hellmann, “Begegnungen,” p. 126.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 95

When Bishop Albert returned to Riga with the crusaders in early 1209, he set
out with his army for Kokenhusen, besieging it once again so that Riga could not
be harmed by the “subtlety of the Lithuanians or false trickery of the Russians”.
A third of the castle now fell into the possession of the Sword Brothers. Even
though the castle had been abandoned only about a year before, the chroni-
cler narrates that it was “full of snakes and worms because of the filthiness
(immundicia) of the former inhabitants”.151 According to Christoph Schmidt,
“snake” in this context was a metaphor for the Russians. He cites the descrip-
tion of Theodoric’s embassy in 1206 as a comparison, in which the chronicler,
paraphrasing Virgil, exposes the deceitfulness of Prince Vladimir of Polotsk: he
bit like a snake in the grass.152 A schismatic may indeed count as a traitor to the
church; in the context of the period’s political history, however, it is likely that
in this case political treachery rather than religious difference is what is meant.
At the beginning of spring that same year Albert discussed with the other
leaders of the Rigan camp “how the new church could be freed from the plots
of the Russians and Lithuanians”. After remembering the damage that the
prince of Gerzike had inflicted upon Riga, the Livs, and the Letts with the help
of the Lithuanians, they decided to go to war against him:

For Prince Vsevolod of Gerzike had always been an enemy of the Christian
name and especially of the Latins. He had taken the daughter of one of
the more powerful Lithuanians as his wife and was, accordingly, almost
one of them, since he was their son-in-law. Joined thus to them in all the
bonds of friendship and family ties, he often acted as the leader of their
army and helped them cross the Daugava river and supplied food whether
they went to Russia, Livonia, or Estonia.

The danger posed by Lithuania at the time was allegedly so great that everyone
fled to the forest, not only the Russians and the Livs but also the Letts.153 Here
the chronicler sees the Christians as suffering together from the pagan attacks,
although the Russians are somewhat ridiculed for fleeing like rabbits from such
a small Lithuanian contingent. Hence, by joining forces with the Lithuanians,
Vsevolod had even excluded himself from the Russian Christian faithful too.

151  H CL XIII.1, p. 66. In the Old Testament inmunditia describes ritual impurity and in the
New Testament the lifestyle contrary to a holy life.
152  Christoph Schmidt, “Das Bild der “Rutheni” bei Heinrich von Lettland,” ZfO 44 (1995),
518–19; cf. HCL X.3, p. 34.
153  H CL XIII.4, p. 69.
96 chapter 2

When the bishop’s army approached the castle of Gerzike, the Russians
took refuge in the castle but were still defeated. According to Henry, the vic-
tors, “out of respect for the Christian name, killed only few of them. They took
more captive and rather permitted them to escape by flight”. Vsevolod’s wife
was among those taken prisoner while the prince himself escaped across the
river. The plentiful booty included church bells and icons. When the prince,
who had supposedly rejected an offer of peace, arrived in Riga and “humbly
prayed them, as fellow Christians” to agree a treaty, the Rigans finally acqui-
esced. The peace treaty of 1209 provided for the return of Vsevolod’s wife and
the other prisoners in exchange for an undertaking not to ally himself with the
Lithuanians against Riga and the prince’s “fellow Russian Christians”. He first
of all had to assign his property to the church of Riga, which was then returned
to him by the bishop as a Fahnenlehen (fief with special prerogatives symbol-
ised by a banner as the sign of investiture). In addition, Vsevolod promised, in
choosing the bishop as his “father”, to inform Albert of all the malicious plans
of the Russians and Lithuanians. He had to give up possession altogether of
Autine and Sesswegen, which had already been occupied by Riga. The chron-
icler nevertheless adds curtly that the prince once again forgot all his prom-
ises. A charter referring to the treaty states that it was drawn up in Riga in the
presence of many “nobles, clerics, knights, merchants, Germans, Russians, and
Livs”.154 These Russians might have been Gerzike’s prisoners or equally mer-
chants staying in Riga.
Manfred Hellmann has described this treaty as based on a fundamental mis-
understanding. Double vassalage, which was common in Western Europe, had
left Vsevolod’s relations with Polotsk intact, but the feudum oblatum (handing
over the allod to the feudal lord and receiving it back as a fief) and its result-
ing obligations, legal relationship, not to mention the entire Western feudal
system remained unintelligible to him.155 After all, the treaty had been con-
cluded as a consequence of the heavy military defeat that required Vsevolod to
accept even more onerous conditions than had been imposed on him before
the conflict. However, he also retained a large degree of independence and
power so that an analysis of his relationship with the bishop of Riga in exces-
sively legalistic terms should be avoided: the determining factor was still the

154  H CL XIII.4, p. 71; LGU 1, no. 2; LUB 1, no. 15. See also LUB 1, no. 23; LVA, no. 63. Andris Levāns
distinguishes with good reason between the act (1209) and date (c. 1211) of the charter:
Andris Levāns, “Cum litterarum testimonio. Dokumentu producēšanas prakse Rīgas
bīskapijā 13. gadsimta sākumā: piezīmes par medievistikas un diplomātikas attiecībām,”
in LVIŽ, 2012, no. 1, 5–40.
155  Hellmann, Lettenland, pp. 131–33.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 97

real ­distribution of power. He had already been forced to give up part of his
territory before, this apparently being the reason for his hostility towards Riga.
The relationship between Polotsk and Gerzike remains unclear in this regard.
In the chronicle, Albert appears much more as the defender of Polotsk and
other Russian territories against Lithuania and Vsevolod.156
Albert had an interest in obtaining support against the Lithuanians and in
securing the territories won from Gerzike. His war against Gerzike should not
be seen as a religious conflict between the Catholic and Orthodox faiths.157 The
plundered ecclesiastical objects were also a valuable booty for the Latins. When
Vsevolod began to rebuild his castle, the churches too were rebuilt and must
have existed at least until the prince’s death in the 1230s.158 Another point in
favour of the coexistence between the faiths is the spiritual and constitutional
father-son relationship established between Vsevolod and Albert. According to
the scholarly consensus, this relationship originates in the Byzantine Russian
tradition and represents something of a ‘translation’ of the feudal relationship
sought by Albert.159 Vsevolod was a negative figure in Henry’s chronicle, not
because of his religion, however, but rather because of his political role.
In 1210 the church of Livonia was, according to Henry, in danger from the
pagans and Russians, who surrounded her on all sides and planned to destroy
her. For this reason, the Livonian leadership decided to work towards a peace
with the prince of Polotsk. The embassy led by Rudolf of Kokenhusen for
unknown reasons did not travel along the Daugava but through Wenden,
where it was attacked by the Estonians.160 After Riga’s forces were defeated
by the Estonians on the river Ymera in 1210, peace with Polotsk was even more
urgent for Riga than before. A new embassy was led by a Sword Brother called
Arnold. He offered to make peace with Polotsk, requesting freedom of move-
ment for Rigan merchants on the Daugava in Polotsk’s territory. The prince’s

156  Cf. HCL XVII.3, p. 113. Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs,” p. 92; Benninghoven, Orden,
pp. 90–93; Alekseev, “Полоцкая земля,” p. 238; Sulev Vahtre, Muinasaja loojang Eestis.
Vabadusvõitlus 1208–1227 (Tallinn, 1990), p. 63; Hucker, “Imperiale Politik,” pp. 51–52;
Nazarova, “Ливония,” p. 71.
157  Cf. Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs,” p. 59; Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert,
pp. 88–90.
158  Nazarova, “Православие,” p. 207.
159  Leonid Arbusow, “Das entlehnte Sprachgut in Heinrichs ‘Chronicon Livoniae’. Ein Beitrag
zur Sprache mittelalterlicher Chronistik,” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters
8 (1950), 146–47; Hellmann, “Begegnungen,” p. 126; Dircks, “Krieg,” p. 125. Cf. Franz Dölger,
Byzanz und die europäische Staatenwelt. Ausgewählte Vorträge und Aufsätze (Ettal, 1953),
pp. 34–69.
160  H CL XIV.7–8, p. 78.
98 chapter 2

envoy, Ludolf of Smolensk, then travelled to Riga. The resulting treaty guaran-
teed Polotsk the right to tribute, whether paid by the Livs or the bishop repre-
senting them. The treaty was probably concluded by the Sword Brothers and
the merchants without regard for the interests of Albert (who was in Germany
at the time) and indeed to his detriment. According to Henry, this was the first
enduring peace between Riga and Polotsk.161 A common interest unifying the
Sword Brothers and Polotsk might have been defence against the Lithuanians.162
An equally important issue was freedom of trade. In Polotsk, for example,
Rigan merchants might be in danger as a reaction to Vsevolod’s submission.163
The treaty also referred to the more remote destination of the Daugava trade,
namely Smolensk, and it is possible that Ludolf was a German merchant resi-
dent there.164 It is likely that Smolensk had a certain degree of influence over
Polotsk during this period.
Two years later in 1212 this treaty was reviewed. The prince of Polotsk, on
his own initiative and at the prearranged time, personally met Bishop Albert
in Gerzike in his role as leader of all of Livonia. Something akin to a mediation
role in the negotiations was played by Albert’s then ally and dependent, Prince
Vladimir Mstislavich of Pskov. The fact that the meeting took place in Gerzike
shows that this region did indeed belong more to Polotsk than to Riga, despite
being a fief of the latter. The prince demanded an explanation from Albert
about the people formerly (quondam) under a duty to pay him tribute, the Livs,
and wanted to discuss the safety of the Daugava trade route. He also demanded
that the baptism of the Livs be stopped since it was in his power whether or
not to baptize his subjects (servos). “It is, indeed, the custom of the Russian
princes not to subject whatever people they defeat to the Christian faith, but
rather to force them to pay tribute and money to themselves”, narrates Henry.
The bishop countered that he had not prevented the Livs from paying tribute,

161  H CL XIV.9, p. 81; Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs,” p. 66; Hellmann, “Begegnungen,”
pp. 126–27. On the question of whether Ludolf was an envoy or merely an interpreter,
see Vera I. Matuzova and Evgeniia L. Nazarova, Крестоносцы и Русь. Конец ХII в.–1270 г.
Тексты, перевод, комментарий (Moscow, 2002) (Древнейшие источники по истории
восточной Европы), p. 163.
162  Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 90–91.
163  Nazarova, “Ливония,” p. 71.
164  Johansen, “Novgorod,” p. 140; Nikolai N. Usachev, “К оценке западных внешнеторговых
связей Смоленска в ХII–ХIV вв.,” in Международные связи России до ХVII в., ed.
Aleksandr A. Zimin and Vladimir T. Pashuto (Moscow, 1961), p. 210. Cf. Aleksandrs Ivanovs
and Anatolijs Kuzņecovs, Smoļenskas-Rīgas aktis 13. gs.–14. gs. pirmā puse. Kompleksa
Moscowitica-Ruthenica dokumenti par Smoļenskas un Rīgas attiecībām (Riga, 2009)
(Vēstures Avoti 6), pp. 234, 257.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 99

rather they themselves had not wished to pay twice to two different lords. It
thus appears that despite what had been agreed in the treaty of 1210 tribute
was no longer being paid or at least not since 1210, perhaps because Albert did
not recognize the treaty entered into by the Sword Brothers. Where the chron-
icle adds that the bishop sometimes (quandoque) paid this tribute for the Livs,
this refers only to the first few years of the century. The account of the negoti-
ations gives the impression that Polotsk suddenly yielded, despite the fact that
both sides were prepared for a possible conflict: the pax perpetua in defence
against the Lithuanians and other pagans was agreed, Polotsk waived its claims
to Livonia, including the payment of tribute, and the merchants were granted
free access to the Daugava. Merchants from both sides were also party to the
treaty. The prince hailed the bishop as his “spiritual father” and the bishop wel-
comed the prince as his son.165 Just as Vsevolod of Gerzike had “chosen” Albert
as his father (eum in patrem eligens) when agreeing the peace treaty of 1209, so
now the prince of Polotsk “hailed” him like a spiritual father (tamquam patrem
spiritualem salutans). Certainly in this case there is no question of Albert hav-
ing any claims on Polotsk. The terminology of the father-son spiritual relation-
ship adopted in Henry’s chronicle in this case is of Byzantine origin, i.e. the
Western feudal bond was quasi ‘translated’ into the legal language adopted in
the Rus’.166 There is again no doubt that Henry recognized Polotsk as Christian,
even though this Christianity appeared suspect since it threatened Riga and
did not concern itself with the baptism of its subjects.167
The reasons that forced Polotsk to make these concessions must remain
within the realm of speculation. The issue was the Livs’ duty to pay tribute.
The question of baptism as a means of subjecting the Livs to ecclesiastical and
other burdens is really a euphemism for their refusal to be charged twice. An
explanation for this is that the prince of Polotsk had become convinced of the
unexpected strength of Albert’s position.168 The prince may have reckoned
with the support of the Livs, but this was not forthcoming. Pressure from the
Liv revolts had forced the bishop in 1211, in between the two Polotsk treaties,

165  H CL XVI.2, pp. 102–04; Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert, pp. 109–10; Dircks, “Krieg,”
pp. 121–24.
166  Arbusow, “Das entlehnte Sprachgut,” p. 147; cf. Ivanovs and Kuzņecovs, Smoļenskas-Rīgas
aktis, p. 244.
167  Cf. Jaan Undusk, “Sacred History, Profane History: Use of the Bible in the Chronicle of
Henry of Livonia,” in Tamm, Crusading and Chronicle Writing, p. 73.
168  Keussler, Ausgang, p. 44; Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs,” pp. 78–79; Hellmann,
Lettenland, pp. 139–40.
100 chapter 2

to replace the tithe of the Livs in part with a lighter fixed interest.169 Whereas
the treaty of 1210 gave the Sword Brothers free rein to wage war in Estonian
Ugaunia and Sackala, the Rigans had now agreed peace with the Estonians
for three years and had a ‘free hand’ in the Daugava.
The merchants’ participation in the negotiations also suggests the resolu-
tion of the trade disputes. The Polotsk merchants themselves may have forced
the concessions made by their prince.170 The independent political role played
by the merchants and the major land owners involved in trade in Polotsk soci-
ety must remain a mystery but one cannot ignore the prince’s need to accom-
modate the wishes of the town and its burghers. In Novgorod, in comparison,
the merchant elite was able to influence politics in the 12th and 13th centuries.
The fact that it was merchants who built the main churches demonstrates the
economic vibrancy of this group. Their important political role is testified to
by the frequency with which they appear in the chronicles, where they are also
mentioned by name. If the prince of Polotsk was reliant on the merchants,
their new position may also have forced him into the concessions. Difficulties
in trade could have been more harmful for Polotsk overall than the missing trib-
ute. Moreover, it is also conceivable that if the prince rather than the burghers
received the tribute, they would understandably have no direct interest in it.
The key to explaining why Russian control of the Daugava collapsed so eas-
ily must lie in the difference between Polotsk’s power on the one hand and
that of the Rigan church and the Sword Brothers on the other. The decline
of Polotsk’s power weakened the relationship of dependency and reduced the
options for military intervention. Riga’s consolidation and increase of its power
was a gradual process rather than one with sudden, marked surges. A crucial
contributory factor was that Russian dominance of the Daugava had not aimed
at the creation of permanent local control mechanisms. Moreover, Riga could
count on a crusading army regularly installed in the city, albeit during only one
season of the year, on the bishop’s vassals who had moved to the country, and
the Sword Brothers.
To summarize events on the Daugava at the beginning of the 13th century
it can be stated that the non-payment by the Livs of the tribute to Polotsk was
clearly the result of the introduction of ecclesiastical taxes. It is hard to over-
estimate the importance of the tribute issue in the relations between Riga and
Polotsk. The treaty of 1212 required Polotsk to give up its demand for tribute

169  H CL XV.5, pp. 92–93; cf. XVI.5, p. 111; Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs,” p. 58; Schmidt,
“Bild,” p. 512; Nazarova, Ливония, p. 71.
170  Hellmann, “Begegnungen,” p. 127; Nazarova, Ливония, pp. 71–72; Kattinger, Gotländische
Genossenschaft, pp. 181–82; cf. Rennkamp, Studien, pp. 193–98.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 101

altogether.171 As regards the exchange of goods, Friedrich Benninghoven main-

tained that the Daugava route was closed from 1203, only reopening gradu-
ally between 1208 and 1212 when the treaties were agreed with Kokenhusen,
Gerzike, and Smolensk.172 However, perhaps one should not refer so categori-
cally to a long-lasting trade blockade similar to later trade embargos. Merchant
ships had often called at Riga. Their avoidance of the Daugava route may have
been related to the prevailing insecurity in regional relations, possible repres-
sion, and the real threat of war, all of which made the risk too great.173
Knights from Kokenhusen attacked Gerzike in both 1214 and 1215, in spite of
the feudal relationship now supposedly binding Bishop Albert and Vsevolod of
Gerzike. According to the chronicle, the pretext was Vsevolod’s failure to meet
his obligations towards his feudal lord and pater Albert. The chronicle uses
legalistic feudal terms to describe Vsevolod’s relations with the Lithuanians,
such as the consilium et auxilium he had given them. During the attack of 1215,
Vsevolod did indeed count on the support of Lithuanian troops. In his descrip-
tion of their assault on the castle of Gerzike, Henry mentions a lot of booty and
the capture of many prisoners but not any deaths. Instead, Henry stresses that
many were allowed to escape and that the knights showed great generosity
towards the Russians.174 Henry thus identifies the causes of these wars in the
failure to perform duties by the vassal and in Vsevolod’s collaboration with the
pagan Lithuanians.175 The compensation claim against Vsevolod mentioned
by Henry and the subsequent refusal to send an envoy suggest, however, that
the origins date further back. The bishop’s policy (represented at the time by
Bishop Philip of Ratzeburg) does not seem to have been the issue at all. The
inference is obvious that there had been border conflicts between Kokenhusen
and Gerzike.
It is apparent from these events that Gerzike’s ties with the bishop of
Riga were still weak at this time, perhaps comparable with its former alli-
ance with Polotsk, which continued in diluted form. In 1225 the influence of
the church of Riga extended to both Gerzike and Pskov,176 i.e. as far as their
borders. At the same time, in 1224 Bishop Albert allocated half of Gerzike—

171  See Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs,” p. 58; Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 121–22.
172  Friedrich Benninghoven, Rigas Entstehung und der frühhansische Kaufmann (Hamburg,
1961) (Nord- und osteuropäische Geschichtsstudien 3), p. 53.
173  Hellmann, “Begegnungen,” p. 127.
174  H CL XVIII.4, p. 117; XVIII.9, p. 122. Cf. LR, lines 660–86; cf. Benninghoven, Orden,
pp. 423–24.
175  Benninghoven, Orden, p. 127.
176  H CL XXIX.2, p. 208.
102 chapter 2

except for Autine—at that prince’s request to the knight Conrad of Üxküll
(i.e. Meyendorff) as a fief on condition that whichever co-owner (the prince of
Gerzike or Conrad) outlived the other would be granted the other half as well.177
This may relate to a part that had already been lost de facto;178 Autine had
belonged to the bishop, or the Sword Brothers, for some time already. The spe-
cific hereditary relationship would be clarified by the hypothesis of Michael
von Taube, who argues that Conrad of Üxküll was the son-in-law of Vsevolod
of Gerzike.179 Thus in Livonia there was a fusion of old and new powers similar
to that in the areas east of the Elbe. Although Taube’s hypothesis has been crit-
icized with sound arguments,180 it is worth considering in view of the possible
securing of Livonia’s first enfeoffments through the marriage of new vassals
with the daughters of the old nobility. According to family tradition in the 16th
century, the transfer of Kokenhusen to the bishop’s vassals was linked to the
marriage of the fief’s first recipient with Viachko’s daughter.181

177  L GU 1, no. 4.
178  Keussler, Ausgang, pp. 46–48.
179  Taube, “Russische und litauische Fürsten,” pp. 440, 447–54; Heinrich Laakmann, “Zur
Geschichte des Grossgrundbesitzes im Erzstift Riga in älterer Zeit,” in Sitzungsberichte
der Gesellschaft für Geschichte und Altertumskunde zu Riga. Vorträge zur Hundertjahrfeier
am 6.–9. Dezember 1934 (Riga, 1936), pp. 53–55; cf. Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 90, 254.
180  Schmidt, “Bild,” p. 515.
181  See LGU 1, no. 31: 1269, the widow of Theodoric of Kokenhusen, Sophia, transfers her
husband’s fief to Johannes von Tiesenhausen; Taube, “Russische und litauische Fürsten,”
pp. 422–33; Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte des Grossgrundbesitzes,” pp. 52–53. According to
Tiesenhausen family tradition in the 16th century, the vassal Theodoric of Kokenhusen
(mentioned under 1218 in HCL XXII.3, p. 150) married the prince’s daughter, Sophia of
Kokenhusen, who remarried Johannes von Tiesenhausen when she was widowed. See
Des Bannerherrn Heinrich von Tiesenhausen des Aelteren von Berson ausgewählte Schriften
und Aufzeichnungen, ed. Richard Hasselblatt (n.p. 1890), p. 7. Should there be any truth
to the family tradition, such a treaty could only have come about in the spring of 1207,
when Viachko assigned part of Kokenhusen to the bishop and his vassals. Nor should
the possibility be ruled out that the prince’s daughter was still a minor at the time and
remained at the bishop’s court (as a hostage?), with the marriage not taking place until
later. An argument against Sophia’s Russian origin, however, is that in 1254 Sophia of
Kokenhusen was enfeoffed by counts Johann and Gerhard of Holstein with the former
fief of a certain Bernhard von Hoje in Germany. See LGU 1, no. 34; LUB 1, no. 261; LUR,
nos 751, 1130, 1189; cf. LGU 1, no. 338, 429, 514. The Tiesenhausen family may have origi-
nated from the county of Hoya on the Weser. See Astaf von Transehe-Roseneck, Die rit-
terlichen Livlandfahrer des 13. Jahrhunderts. Eine genealogische Untersuchung (Würzburg,
1960) (Marburger Ostforschungen 12), pp. 32–33. The originally Greek name of Sophia was
known in Germany and Denmark.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 103

We do not know for certain either when Vsevolod of Gerzike died or when
the power of the bishop of Riga and the Sword Brothers reached what would
be its final limits in the Middle Ages, stretching across the Daugava to the prin-
cipality of Polotsk. What is beyond doubt is that after the 1209 treaty agreed
with Bishop Albert the area of Riga’s political influence extended up to the bor-
der with Polotsk, which was located somewhere upriver from the later settle-
ment of Dünaburg,182 even though military conflicts with Vsevolod continued
after this. A register from the 17th century records that Bishop Nicholas of Riga
(1229–53) confirmed the donation of Prince Wissewalde of Gerzike to the mon-
astery of Dünamünde, namely an estate probably in the vicinity of the modern
city of Dünaburg (Daugavpils, Latvia).183 On that basis, Riga’s area of control
on the Daugava would already have exceeded Polotsk’s late medieval borders
by the end of Albert’s episcopate.184 However, given that this is a late register,
the possibility of errors or even a forgery cannot be excluded. At the beginning
of the 15th century these areas in fact belonged to the Livonian Cistercians.185
The charter by which Bishop Nicholas of Riga gave half of the stronghold of
Gerzike to the Teutonic Order has also been preserved as a late transumpt.186
The fact that the heirs of Gerzike are named therein means that Vsevolod had
already died by this time. The castle may have been destroyed during the fight-
ing against the Lithuanians c. 1236–37. The urgent need to rebuild the castle
mentioned in the charter was also the result of the danger posed by Lithuania.187
The region of Gerzike was thus annexed to Livonia between 1220 and 1230 as
a result of Riga’s growing strength and at the expense of the relations that had

182  Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs,” pp. 57–58.

183  L GU 1, no. 13 and p. 14; Carl Schirren, Verzeichniss livländischer Geschichts-Quellen in
schwedischen Archiven und Bibliotheken (Dorpat, 1861–68), p. 128 no. 39.
184  Keussler, Ausgang, p. 49; Hellmann, Lettenland, pp. 164–65; Benninghoven, Orden, p. 254.
185  L UB 7, no. 778.
186  L UB 1, no. 163: “locum castri, qui dicitur Gerceke, situm super Dunam”; LVA, no. 234. On
the charter’s authenticity, see LUR, no. 457; Taube, “Russische und litauische Fürsten,”
pp. 440, 447–50. See also Keussler, Ausgang, pp. 50–52; Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte des
Grossgrundbesitzes,” pp. 53–55; Hellmann, Lettenland, p. 172.
187  Benninghoven, Orden, p. 351. The castle had still not been rebuilt by 1256 (locus castri
in Gerzeke): LVA, no. 432; LUB 1, no. 288. Cf. LGU 1, no. 69. According to archaeological
evidence, Gerzike was certainly populated during the 13th and 14th centuries: Evalds
Mugurevičs, “Similarities and Differences among Lettigallian and German Castles in
Eastern Latvia During the 9th–15th Centuries,” in Castella Maris Baltici vol. 2, ed. Magnus
Josephson and Mats Mogren (Nyköping, 1996) (Sörmländska handlingar 49; Lund Studies
in Medieval Archeology 18), p. 121; Antonija Vilcāne, Senā Jersika (Riga, 2004).
104 chapter 2

existed up to that time with Polotsk and Lithuania.188 Vsevolod met the papal
legate William of Modena in Riga in 1225.189 This might indicate that some
political contact had been set up or confirmed. Possible donations by Vsevolod
to the monastery of Dünamünde suggest that a shift in political allegiance also
entailed a change in ecclesiastical affiliation. The pagan regions of Gerzike
were baptized as Catholic, while in Gerzike itself Orthodox and Catholic reli-
gious services could initially be found side by side, perhaps until the Orthodox
churches were destroyed by the Lithuanians and the castle abandoned.
The fighting on the Daugava undoubtedly made trade more difficult, but at
the same time Riga’s growing strength also benefited its merchants, and pre-
sumably the region’s native population did not remain entirely uninvolved in
commercial activities either. Since not only German merchants traded along
the Daugava, it is plausible that the sending of Estonian envoys from Ösel to
Prince Vladimir of Polotsk in 1216 was related to this trade. What is certain is
that the envoys urged the prince to fight with them against Riga. Vladimir had
raised a large army made up of Russians and Lithuanians, but the start of the
military campaign was interrupted by his sudden death that same year. Henry
saw in this a sign of divine intervention or the intercession of the Virgin Mary:
the church rejoiced “over the liberation from the Russians and other nations”.190
At the beginning of 1222 Henry’s chronicle relates the Mongol attack on the
Polovtsians (Valvi), their appeals for help to the Russian princes, and the Battle
of the Kalka River, in which Grand Prince Mstislav Romanovich of Kiev and
many other Russian princes were killed. Smolensk, Polotsk, “and some other”
Russian princes then sent envoys to Riga to renew the peace treaty.191 The
Battle of the Kalka River has usually been dated by historians to 1223 or 1224.
Was Henry mistaken here in his otherwise accurate chronology?192 Henry was

188  Cf. Edvardas Gudavičius, “Following the Tracks of a Myth,” Lithuanian Historical Studies 1
(1996), 40.
189  H CL XXIX.4, p. 211.
190  H CL XIX.11, p. 134; XX.1, p. 135 (“a Ruthenis ac aliis gentibus”); XXV.2, pp. 178–81. The word
gens, which often stands for ‘pagan’ in the Middle Ages, is also used by Henry in its neu-
tral sense of ‘people’ (including Catholics). The Russians are not therefore being equated
with pagans here: HCL XXI.1, p. 140; VII.3, p. 21; cf. IV.5–6, p. 14. See also Paul Görlich,
Zur Frage des Nationalbewusstseins in ostdeutschen Quellen des 12. bis 14. Jahrhunderts
(Marburg/Lahn, 1964) (Wissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Geschichte und Landeskunde Ost-
Mitteleuropas 66), pp. 85–96.
191  H CL XXVI.1, pp. 186–87; HCL XXV.3, pp. 179, 182; cf. XXV.2.
192  Sergei A. Anninskii, “Введение. Примечания,” in Генрих Латвийский, Хроника
Ливонии, ed. Sergei A. Anninskii (Moscow-Leningrad, 1938) (Известия иностранцев о
народах СССР), pp. 40–41, 563–67; Matuzova and Nazarova, Крестоносцы, pp. 184–85,
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 105

o­ therwise well informed in general on the battle, being familiar with the course
of events and the individuals killed in the fighting. It is not known whether
the envoys from Smolensk and Polotsk were the same ones staying in Riga at
the turn of 1223/24.193
It also remains unclear which dynasty succeeded Vladimir on the Polotsk
throne. The Novgorod Chronicle relates under the year 1222 that the Iaroslavich
line of Smolensk conquered Polotsk on 17 January, during the period of rule
of the princes Boris and Gleb.194 The Iaroslavich line, descendants of Iaroslav
Vladimirovich (d. 1054), are thus contrasted with the Iziaslavich dynasty of
Polotsk. In 1239 Prince Aleksandr Iaroslavich of Novgorod married in Toropets
the daughter of Prince Briacheslav of Polotsk,195 who, on the basis of his name,
also belonged to the Iziaslavich.196 Some historians have connected the men-
tion of Boris in 1222 with the fictitious information provided by the Polish
chronicler Maciej Stryjkowski (c. 1547–c. 1586/1593), the Lithuanian chronicles
and later Tatishchev, leading them to refer to the rule of a Lithuanian Prince
Boris Ginvilovich in Polotsk in the 1220s.197 Stryjkowski dated the genealogy of
Boris and his son Gleb to the beginning of the 13th century but this in fact goes
back to the middle of the 12th century (cf. p. 71), with the result that this does
not give grounds to connect this Boris with Lithuania.198 Perhaps this relates to
the representatives of the local dynasty of Polotsk and its subordinate towns,
who at a certain point were recognized as princes jointly.

187; cf. Brincken, Nationes, pp. 396–97, 413–14; Gian Andri Bezzola, Die Mongolen in abend­
ländischer Sicht (1220–1270). Ein Beitrag zur Frage der Völkerbegegnungen (Bern-Munich,
1974), pp. 32–37.
193  H CL XXVII.6, p. 199. See also Arist [Ernst] Kunik, “О признании 1223 года временем
битвы при Калке,” in Ученыя записки Имп. Академии Наук по I и III отделениям 2,
1854, p. 777.
194  N L1, p. 263. The notice comes under 6730 (1222) in the Novgorod Chronicle and precedes
the Battle of the Kalka placed here after the conquest of Dorpat under 6732 (1224). It is not
found in the chronicle’s older recension.
195  N L1, pp. 77, 289.
196  The name of Briacheslav was present in this line. Shtykhov, Древний Полоцк, p. 14; Martin
Dimnik, “Russian Princes and their Identities in the First Half of the Thirteenth Century,”
Mediaeval Studies 40 (1978), 178–79.
197  Baumgarten, Généalogies, p. 33; Taube, “Russische und litauische Fürsten,” pp. 392, 404–
05; Hellmann, Lettenland, pp. 161; Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert, pp. 119–20; Hellmann,
“Begegnungen,” pp. 127–28.
198  See also Dimnik, “Russian Princes,” pp. 178–79, who identifies the prince Rostislav
Borisovich mentioned in Kiev in 1231 with a son of the Boris mentioned under the year
1222.
106 chapter 2

At the same time, contemporary Polotsk appears to have come under even
greater influence from Smolensk, as revealed in the account of the Novgorod
Chronicle from 1222. In the war of 1232 to succeed the previous prince of
Smolensk, Mstislav-Fedor Davydovich, who had died in 1230, Prince Sviatoslav
Mstislavich, who was descended from the other branch of this dynasty, then
in turn conquered Smolensk together with the men of Polotsk. The house of
Smolensk had thus consolidated its power in Polotsk after Boris and now its
representative Sviatoslav proceeded to appropriate power for himself in his
native city.199
But the conflicts between Riga and Polotsk formed just the surface of their
relations. The early 13th century was also when Riga began to emerge as the
most important town in Livonia, largely thanks to the Daugava trade. Alongside
the conflicts highlighted by Henry’s negative attitude in the chronicle towards
Polotsk as the enemy of the bishop and the ally of the pagan Lithuanians, there
were also commercial relations.
While Mstislav-Fedor was still in power, but after the death of Bishop Albert
on 17 January 1229, a trade treaty between the Russians, Gotland and Riga
was agreed in 1229 by the Smolensk envoys with the inclusion of Polotsk and
Vitebsk.200 As well as the merchants from Gotland, Lübeck, Münster, Soest,
Groningen, Dortmund, and Bremen, the parties to the treaty also included the
Rigan church and the Order of the Sword Brothers. Among its signatories, a
certain “Thomas of Smolensk” (Тоумаш Смолнянинъ) is named, presumably
a German merchant resident in Smolensk. The text states that prior to this the
merchants had had no peace and that there had been a dispute (розлюбие)
between the Germans and the citizens of Smolensk. Does this refer to a mil-

199  N L1, pp. 72, 281; Alekseev, Смоленская земля, pp. 233–34; The papal bulls of Gregory
IX from the beginning of 1229 to the bishops of Linköping, Lübeck and Riga, and to the
Cistercians on Gotland and in Dünamünde, prohibiting trade with the Russians while
they threatened the Finnish converts, related to events in Finland and had no bearing on
the relations between Riga and Smolensk: ST 1, no. 75; REA, no. 3–5; LUB 3, no. 100a. Cf.
Kattinger, Gotländische Genossenschaft, pp. 211–14.
200  Ivanovs and Kuzņecovs, Smoļenskas-Rīgas aktis, pp. 528–99; Rennkamp, Studien,
pp. 199–204. The treaty of 1229 may have been preceded slightly earlier by negotiations
with Smolensk or even by a treaty in the 1220s. See Ivanovs and Kuzņecovs, Smoļenskas-
Rīgas aktis, pp. 227–45. Cf. the refutation by Pavel V. Petrukhin, “О новом издании
смоленско-рижских актов,” in Именослов. История языка. История культуры, ed.
Fedor B. Uspenskii (Moscow, 2012) (Труды Центра славяно-германских исследований
2), p. 396. See also Pavel V. Petrukhin, “О датировке списка А договора Смоленска
с Ригой и Готским берегом,” in Лингвистическое источниковедение и история
русского языка 2012–2013 (2013), 161–78.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 107

itary conflict between Polotsk and Livonia, or purely commercial disputes?

In 1226 the legate William of Modena had ensured that if the Sword Brothers
were to take possession of as large an area in Lettgallia as Albert had given to
Theodoric of Kokenhusen in Warka, they would not have to share this with
the bishop.201 By Warka is probably meant modern Varkļāni, south of Lake
Lubāns. The attempts to gain power in eastern Lettgallia by the bishop’s vas-
sal Theodoric and the Sword Brothers could have led to conflicts with Polotsk
and Smolensk. However, in terms of the text of the treaty, which deals solely
with trade and the sojourn of merchants abroad, the legal system, and similar
matters, it makes much more sense to assume that trade conflicts are being
referred to. A number of Germanisms in the Russian text—it is also dated anno
Domini and not, as in the Old Russian tradition, according to the creation of
the world—show that it evolved during the course of complex n ­ egotiations.202
This treaty of 1229, which was mainly based on the existing tradition, in turn
created the legal basis for Daugava trade throughout the remainder of the
Middle Ages, and was subsequently confirmed and renewed on numerous
occasions.
The collapse of Polotsk’s control on the Daugava did not result from any reli-
giously motivated conflict. Internal developments in Polotsk caused the frag-
mentation of political power there, a process that had already begun before
the arrival of the crusaders in Livonia. The dominance of Riga emerged grad-
ually and for a period of time its system of rule was a form of condominium.

2.3.2 The Conquest of Lettgallia

Whereas Polotsk was no longer able to play an independent role among the
Russian principalities at the beginning of the 13th century, with the result that
it was now at one remove from their inner conflicts, the Rigan wars and alli-
ances with the lands of north-eastern Lettgallia and eastern Estonia brought
Riga into contact with Pskov, Novgorod, and other Russian powers. In the early
13th century a conflict broke out in Rus’ between two princely families which
was to become one of the main features of the Russian political history of the
period. These families were the Vsevolodovich of Suzdal, the descendants of
Vsevolod Iur’evich (d. 1212), and the Rostislavich of Smolensk, the descendants
of Rostislav Mstislavich (d. 1167). After the death of Vsevolod, a dispute erupted

201  L UB 1, no. 84. Cf. Taube, “Russische und litauische Fürsten,” p. 425; Johansen, “Novgorod,”
p. 140; Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 254–55; Mugurevich, Восточная Латвия, p. 17.
202  Cf. Kiparsky, “Wer hat den Handelsvertrag aufgesetzt?”; Elena Bratishenko, “On the
authorship of the 1229 Smolensk-Riga trade treaty,” in Russian Linguistics 26 (2002),
345–61; Petrukhin, “О датировке списка А,” pp. 165–69.
108 chapter 2

between his sons over the title of grand prince of Vladimir. In Novgorod this
struggle caused the rapid changes of the prince accepted by the city. Novgorod
was in turn able to influence its weaker neighbour, Pskov, although recent
research shows that it is still not entirely accurate to call Pskov a direct sub-
ordinate town of Novgorod in the 13th century. Their political aims however
coincided from time to time, added to which one or more princes from one of
the dynasties was able to exercise an influence in both cities.203
In the winter of 1208–09 Sviatoslav Vsevolodovich was driven from Novgorod
and Mstislav Mstislavich ‘the Bold’ (‘Udaloi’) of Toropets from the Smolensk
dynasty was appointed the new prince. Mstislav was able to maintain his posi-
tion over several years until there was a change in the balance of power, with
Novgorod captured by Iaroslav Vsevolodovich in 1215. The Novgorodians soon
became dissatisfied with him, however, and in 1216 the troops of Vladimir-
Suzdal were defeated on the river Lipitsa by Novgorod and the prince of
Smolensk. There was a change of prince in Novgorod just about every year
after that. In 1216 and 1217 Mstislav ‘Udaloi’ was on the throne. He was followed
from 1217 to 1218 by Sviatoslav Mstislavich-Borisovich, and from 1218 to 1221 by
Vsevolod Mstislavich-Borisovich, both also from the Smolensk dynasty. Power
in Novgorod was then regained by the Suzdal faction. In 1221 and 1224 Vsevolod
Iur’evich was named prince while still a minor; in 1223, 1225–29, and 1230–36,
Iaroslav Vsevolodovich, later represented by his minor sons Aleksandr and
Fedor, held power. Mikhail Vsevolodovich from the Chernigov dynasty kept
the throne in 1225 and 1229–30, and was later represented by his minor son
Rostislav.204
Contemporary Pskov was ruled by Vladimir, the elder brother of Mstislav
Mstislavich ‘Udaloi’, although we do not know when his reign began. The
Novgorod Chronicle mentions him for the first time in 1208. Immediately
before Novgorod expelled Sviatoslav Vsevolodovich that winter and as the
first step in the power shift towards the Rostislavich, Vladimir led an army
against Lithuania together with the Novgorod posadnik Tverdislav, but he is

203  See Valentin L. Ianin, Средневековый Новгород. Очерки археологии и истории (Moscow,
2004), pp. 254–66; Valerov, Новгород. Cf. Denis G. Khrustalev, “Ледовое побоище и статус
Пскова,” in Ледовое побоище в зеркале эпохи. Сборник научных работ, посвященный
770-летию битвы на Чудском озере, ed. Marina B. Bessudnova (Lipetsk, 2013), pp. 69–91.
204  On the political struggle in Novgorod, see Valentin L. Ianin, Новгородские посадники
(Moscow, 2003) (Studia historica), pp. 193–200; Vladimir D. Severinov, “Новгород
в период посадничества Твердислава Михалковича,” in Прошлое Новгорода и
Новгородской земли. Материалы научной конференции 2001–2002 гг., vol. 1, ed.
Vasilii F. Andreev (Velikii Novgorod, 2002), pp. 35–42. For the chronology, see Nikolai G.
Berezhkov, Хронология русского летописания (Moscow, 1963), pp. 259–61, 268–70.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 109

still not referred to as the prince of Pskov at this time. Perhaps, as suggested
by Valentin Ianin, he had simply taken part with its army in the fighting. In
1209 he is already called Vladimir of Pskov. He was expelled from Pskov in 1212,
whereupon he went to Livonia. Vladimir is once again mentioned as prince
of Pskov in 1216, probably having returned there sometime around 1215.205 He
went to Pskov after the Battle of Lipitsa in 1216.206 After that he is repeatedly
mentioned in the sources over the next few years until the mid-1220s.207
Also in 1208 the Ymera Letts were baptized according to the Latin rite, hav-
ing previously drawn lots as to whether they should accept baptism from Riga
or Pskov, given that the rest of Tolowa had been baptized eorum tempore by
the Pskov Russians, to whom it had semper paid tribute.208 The Orthodox bap-
tism of Tolowa had taken place just a short time before, possibly in response to
Riga’s practice of linking a region’s submission to its conversion to Christianity.
Nearby Ydumea and Wenden had been baptized by Riga in 1206 and 1207. The
Ymera Letts were apparently not under an obligation to pay tribute to Pskov,
but they were nevertheless somehow linked to Tolowa. The sources testify to
the dependence of a part of Tolowa on Pskov, namely the Trikaten region ruled
by Talibald. The exact extent of his rule and consequently that of Pskov is not
clear. Between Tolowa and Pskov lay Adsel, which was, as would appear logical,
also obliged to pay tribute to Pskov.209
In 1208 the Lettgallian elders Russin of Sotecle, Waridote of Autine, and
Talibald of Beverin entered into an alliance with the Sword Brothers, who
had a presence in Wenden at least by 1207. The alliance also provided for joint
action against the lands of Ugaunia and Sackala in southern Estonia.210 These
Lettgallian leaders henceforth always acted as the allies or subjects of the
Order and the bishop of Riga, with the exception of the revolt of the Livs and
a section of the Lettgallians in 1212, when Russin was killed. In 1214 Talibald’s
sons from Tolowa submitted to the rule of Bishop Albert and undertook to
adapt the faith received from the Russians to the Latin observance as well as
to pay the fixed tax. A priest was sent to them by Bishop Philip of Ratzeburg.

205  Летопись по Воскресенскому списку, ed. Iakov I. Berdnikov et al. (St Petersburg, 1856)
(PSRL 7), p. 120.
206  S L1, p. 274; NL4, pp. 196–97.
207  Ianin, Средневековый Новгород, p. 262; Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, pp. 98–103.
208  H CL XI.7, p. 55.
209  Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs,” pp. 63–64; Arbusow, “[Review of Ammann,]
Kirchenpolitische Wandlungen,” p. 303; Hellmann, Lettenland, pp. 137–38; Benninghoven,
Orden, pp. 91–93; Hellmann, “Begegnungen,” p. 129.
210  H CL XII.6, pp. 61–62; Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs,” pp. 61–63.
110 chapter 2

Henry mentions Vladimir’s return to Pskov before this.211 To a certain extent

therefore Philip’s action was also a way of asserting precedence over the poten-
tial claims of Pskov and Vladimir in this region.212 In 1215 the Sackalians and
Ugaunians seized Talibald and “roasted him like a fish” on the fire: “Since he
was a Christian and one of the number of faithful Letts, we hope that his soul
is gladly rejoicing for such a martyrdom in eternal happiness in the company
of the holy martyrs.”213 According to Indriķis Šterns (1918–2005), this passage
provides proof of Talibald’s Catholic rebaptism since Henry would not have
praised an Orthodox martyrdom.214 However, his conversion to the Latin faith
did not necessarily mean a personal religious conversion or rebaptism, but
rather that the place and people under his rule had been joined in an external
relationship with another ecclesiastical hierarchy, a bond which manifested
itself in the payment of taxes and belonging to a particular episcopal see. The
new priest would also have changed the rite in the case that Russian religious
services had ever been held in Trikaten. One’s religious confession had above
all political significance in Livonia at that time. This explains how a man who
had previously been baptized in the Orthodox faith but had later collaborated
with the bishop of Riga and the Sword Brothers could be represented as a
martyr. Indeed, the reverse could be true. Scholars have often pointed out that
the chronicler did not praise Bishop Theodoric of Estonia as a martyr when
he was murdered in Reval in 1219 because he had been a political opponent of
Riga at the time.
Prince Vladimir Mstislavich of Pskov, who had come to Livonia in 1212 after
apparently being expelled from Pskov, at first became Bishop Albert’s bailiff
in Autine. When the bishop’s possessions here were transferred to the Sword
Brothers in 1213, Vladimir replaced his own son-in-law Theodoric as bailiff in
Ydumea after he had gone to Germany.215 Henry’s attitude towards Vladimir
is overtly hostile. During his tenure as bailiff of the Ydumea Letts and the
Lettgallians he “reaped many things he had not sowed”. For this reason, his
administration of justice did not entirely please the bishop of Ratzeburg “or
anybody else”. Vladimir “at last gratified the wishes of many people and went to
Russia”.216 It is difficult to judge the reasons for this dissatisfaction on the basis

211  H CL XVIII.2–3, pp. 115–16.

212  Cf. HCL XX.5, p. 137; Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs,” p. 83.
213  H CL XIX.3, pp. 124–25.
214  Indriķis Šterns, “Tālavas Tālivalža ticība,” LVIŽ 2000, no. 2 (35), 32–33; cf. Laakmann, “Zur
Geschichte Heinrichs,” p. 84; Matuzova and Nazarova, Крестоносцы, pp. 169–70.
215  H CL XVI.6–7, pp. 111–12.
216  H CL XVII.4, p. 113.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 111

of this parable. The chronicle gives the impression that Vladimir took deci-
sions that were detrimental to the church—perhaps also relating to Henry’s
own church in Papendorf.
In the winter of 1213–14 Vladimir returned with his wife, sons, and entire
familia to Livonia, where he proceeded to act as bailiff in the castle of Metimne
in Ydumea and collected taxes. The priests Henry and Alebrand even sent
him gifts. Together with the Sword Brothers, Vladimir took part in repelling
a Lithuanian raid.217 As magistrate of Ydumea, he had, according to Henry,
become particularly infuriated over the local priest Alebrand, who pleaded
with the prince because of the oppression of the poor and the confiscation of
their property, since this could provoke neophytes into rejecting Christianity.
The prince is said to have threatened to diminish Alebrand’s property, a threat
which he did indeed carry out some years later during a military campaign.
After a while Vladimir returned with his familia to Rus’.218 This passage points
to a conflict between Vladimir and the church over the latter’s possessions.
This is because immediately after the baptism of the region legal jurisdic-
tion in Ydumea belonged to the very same Alebrand from whom it was later
withdrawn. Henry is able to report precisely with regard to Alebrand’s admin-
istration of justice that this later declined “throughout all Livonia, Lettgallia,
and Estonia at the hands of diverse lay, secular judges”.219 It is precisely in this
aspect that the differences between Vladimir on the one hand and Henry and
Alebrand on the other must be sought. A possibility might be the division of
the bailiff’s revenue with the episcopal ruler, then represented by Philip of
Ratzeburg, with whom, incidentally, Vladimir’s wife and familia shared lodg-
ings in early 1214 at the bishop of Riga’s residence.220 The fact that Vladimir
came back is a sign that this conflict was not the cause of his departure. This
must clearly be sought in the political state of affairs in Pskov.221 There was no
comparison between the position of a prince in Pskov and that of a bailiff in
Ydumea either in terms of prestige or income, so that Vladimir would not have
returned to Livonia unless forced to leave Pskov.

217  H CL XVII.6, pp. 114–15.

218  H CL XVIII.2, p. 115.
219  H CL X.15, pp. 46–47.
220  H CL XVIII.1, p. 115.
221  See Evgeniia L. Nazarova, “Место Ливонии в отношениях между Новгородом и
Псковом. 1-я четверть ХIII в.,” in Историческая археология. Традиции и перспективы.
К 80-летию со дня рождения Даниила А. Авдусина, ed. Valentin L. Ianin et. al. (Moscow,
1998), pp. 353–54.
112 chapter 2

Vladimir’s activity in Lettgallia is a good example of the permeability of

the religious frontier in contemporary Livonia. Vladimir was the bailiff in a
Catholic bishopric, undoubtedly without having been rebaptized; his family
and entourage were staying with the bishop of Riga. His son-in-law’s terri-
tory (see p. 116), where he was based, later belonged to the same Theodoric of
Bekeshovede, this time not as a bailiff’s district but as a fief.222 According to
one hypothesis, the name of the castle and town of Wolmar are even dervied
from ‘Vladimir’.223
In the winter of 1216–17, as Vladimir, once again reinstalled as prince of
Pskov, attempted to secure Ugaunia, the Pskovians went to Tolowa to collect
tribute as always, raizing the castle of Beverin to the ground. Although they
were able to burn down the castle, the Sword Brothers from Wenden out-
numbered them and thus succeeded in taking them prisoner. When envoys
from Novgorod came to Livonia early in the spring of 1217, the prisoners were
released and returned honourably to Rus’.224 It cannot be inferred from this,
however, that Novgorod also would have taken a share of Tolowa’s tribute.
Novgorod was governed at the time by the brother of Vladimir of Pskov, Prince
Mstislav, and their policies were closely intertwined. One could pose the purely
hypothetical question whether Tolowa’s tribute did not after all make up part
of the income of the princes rather than the town community, which would
mean that Pskov’s burghers as a whole would not have been that interested in
obtaining it.225 In Rus’ it was normal for one third of booty and tribute to be
distributed to the prince’s entourage and two thirds to the community. This
was precisely how, in 1212, Mstislav Mstislavich divided the booty acquired

222  Heinrich Laakmann, “Die Ymera,” in Sitzungsberichte der Gelehrten Estnischen Gesellschaft
1930 (1932), pp. 145, 156–57; Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte des Grossgrundbesitzes,” p. 56;
Laakmann, “Estland,” pp. 206–07; Transehe-Roseneck, Die ritterlichen Livlandfahrer,
pp. 19–20; Julia Prinz-aus der Wiesche, Die Russisch-Orthodoxe Kirche im mittelalterli-
chen Pskov (Wiesbaden, 2004) (Schriften zur Geistesgeschichte des östlichen Europa 28),
pp. 59–60.
223  Taube, “Russische und litauische Fürsten,” pp. 384, 457; Benninghoven, Orden, p. 234. Cf.
Laakmann, “Ymera,” p. 154.
224  H CL XX.5, pp. 137–38.
225  Evgeniia L. Nazarova has suggested that this relates to a conflict between Pskov and
Novgorod. See idem, “Латгальская дань в системе отношений между Новгородом
и Псковом,” in Восточная Европа в древности и Средневековье. Политическая
структура Древнерусского государства. VIII Чтения памяти В. Т. Пашуто (Moscow,
1996), p. 66.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 113

in Warbola, in Estonia, with the Novgorodians.226 In Rus’ at the beginning of

the 13th century the first rudimentary principles governing the distribution of
estates between the town and the prince were already in place; Tolowa’s trib-
utary dependency was nothing unusual. When Tolowa switched to the church
of Riga in 1214, the Pskovian right of tribute was not disputed in itself but its
collectors were arrested in 1216 and 1217 in response to the burning of the cas-
tle. When peace was agreed in 1224, the outstanding Tolowa tribute was finally
paid to the envoys from Novgorod and Pskov.227 In other words, payment had
been suspended in the meantime due to the virtually uninterrupted succes-
sion of wars at the time.
Late in the summer of 1218 Prince Vsevolod Mstislavich of Novgorod
(d. 1249) and Vladimir of Pskov laid waste to Estonian and Latvian territory,
burning Henry’s and Alebrand’s churches among other things. The army of
Vladimir’s son Iaroslav, the very same who had once lived in Bishop Albert’s
house, besieged the castle of the Sword Brothers in Wenden and devastated
the lands of the Lettgallians, Ydumea Letts, and the Livs. Once the troops had
gathered together, they all surrounded the castle of the Wends. When the latter
refused the Russian offer of peace (i.e. to pay the required ransom), the army
returned via Ugaunia to Rus’, where the Lithuanians had plundered Pskov in
the ­interim.228 That same year and in the following years the Lettgallians and
Pskov attacked one another. At the beginning of 1219 Pskov’s peace envoys were
in Livonia and Albert’s in Novgorod in 1220.229 Henry remains silent on whether
peace was finally agreed with Pskov. Perhaps in this way he wished to conceal
the tensions between the bishop and the Order, since the military campaign
previously mentioned involved the Sword Brothers and their Lettgallians, not
the bishop. Bishop Albert was thus able to put his relationship with Pskov
into order.
In 1221 Pskov sent back to Riga the letter of peace of 1217 written at Odenpäh
(see p. 121) thus rejecting the peace and in the late summer invaded Livonia
with a large army from Novgorod, Pskov, and north-east Russia led by Sviatoslav
(d. 1252), the brother of Grand Prince Iurii Vsevolodovich (d. 1238), with his
Lithuanian allies. The Russians once again pillaged the Order’s territory in
Lettgallia and Ymera, as well as Ugaunia, which the Order also laid claim to,

226  N L1, pp. 52–53, 251; Danilevskii, Древняя Русь, p. 132. Cf. Nazarova, “Место Ливонии,”
pp. 351, 354.
227  H CL XXVIII.9, pp. 206–07: “tributum, quod semper habebant in Tolowa, eis restituentes.”
228  H CL XXII.2–6, pp. 148–52; NL1, pp. 59–60, 261; Vahtre, Muinasaja loojang, pp. 132–133. On
the date, see Berezhkov, Хронология p. 254.
229  H CL XXII.7, 9, p. 152; XXIII.5, pp. 158–59; XXIV.1, p. 169.
114 chapter 2

as well as the episcopal possession of Treyden. Virtually the only opposition

encountered by Rus’ was, however, propter discordiam, que fuerat in terra, pro-
vided by the Order.230 The conflict between the Sword Brothers and the bishop
of Riga thus played a role in this campaign too. Henry is well informed on this
episode, relating that the Lithuanians remained an entire month in Pskov on
their way back before returning home.
At the end of 1224 Novgorod and Pskov envoys were in Riga, peace was agreed,
and the Tolowa tribute was paid to Pskov or the prince of Pskov. Tolowa itself
was divided between the bishop of Riga and the Sword Brothers, with Bishop
Albert receiving two thirds and the Order one third.231 It can be assumed that
the discordia regarding Tolowa lasted some time, just like the issue of posses-
sion of Sackala and Ugaunia. The Order used its alliance with the Lettgallians
to draw them into its sphere of influence, taking the view that it was no longer
necessary to share the Lettgallian lands with the bishop.232 The Order obtained
Adsel, while the bishop received the borderlands Berezne, Purnau, Abelen,
and Abrene, part of which fell to Pskov during the border disputes during the
14th to 16th centuries. It was evidently not particularly important for relations
between Pskov and Livonia whether these areas were already subject to Livonia
at the time and had been annexed to it via the alliance, or whether their actual
submission did not take place until later. For Pskov was still collecting tribute
in Adsel in the 1280s, and the border disputes between the archbishopric of
Riga and Pskov are first documented from the 1340s.233 Pskov’s influence seems
to have been driven from the area gradually, which may also have contributed
to the origin of the border conflict. The Teutonic Order’s castle at Marienburg
(modern Alūksne, Latvia)234 was first founded here in 1342, the bishop’s cas-
tle of Marienhausen (modern Viļaka, Latvia), somewhat further south-east,
probably not until before the beginning of the 16th century. In the period from
1220 to 1230, after the submission of Estonia, the Sword Brothers probably also
began the conquest of eastern Lettgallia, a venture that was not completely

230  H CL XXV.3, pp. 182–83; NL1, pp. 60–61, 262–63; Berezhkov, Хронология, p. 254.
231  H CL XXVIII.9, pp. 206–07; XXIX.1, p. 207.
232  Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs,” pp. 68–69.
233  L UB 1, no. 70; LVA, no. 106; Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs,” pp. 96–97; Carl von
Stern, “Livlands Ostgrenze im Mittelalter vom Peipus bis zur Düna,” Mitt. Riga 23 (1924–
26), 224–25; Silvia Laul and Heiki Valk, Siksälä. A Community at the Frontiers. Iron Age and
Medieval (Tallinn-Tartu, 2007) (CCC Papers 10), pp. 132–38. On identifying the toponyms,
see Muntis Auns, “Adzeles zeme,” LVIŽ 1999, no. 3 (32), 27–42.
234  This Marienburg is not to be confused with Malbork, modern Poland.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 115

successful until the end of the 13th century or even later. This did not result in
a conflict with Pskov, however, but with Polotsk and Lithuania (see p. 239).235
The subjugation of Lettgallia by the church of Riga and the Sword Brothers
during the first decades of the 13th century created rivalry with Pskov to a cer-
tain extent. On some occasions baptism by a given centre of power could also
be a sign of subjugation. But these conflicts never attained the character of
religiously motivated or legitimated war. In the eastern part of the area the sei-
gnoral claims of Pskov and the Livonian authorities overlapped and there were
periods of political cooperation between Pskov princes and the church of Riga.

2.3.3 The Conquest of Estonia

Prior to the war of the crusaders and missionaries from Riga with the Estonians,
envoys were sent to Ugaunia in 1208 to demand the return of the possessions of
the merchants robbed before the foundation of Riga in 1201. The robbery had
occurred at the behest of the Livs while the merchants were en route from the
Daugava to Pskov.236 The Ugaunians thus bore responsibility for the robbery,
and it was precisely against Odenpäh, the settlement through which the Riga-
Pskov route ran and which was Ugaunia’s dominant centre in the early 13th
century,237 that the first offensive against the Estonians was launched. Another
subject for discussion in 1208 was what had been unjustly purloined from the
Lettgallians by the Ugaunians.238 Clearly the same goods were not at issue, for
the goods stolen from the Lettgallians could just as well have originated from a
plunder raid, whereas the merchants were Germans.239
An ancient trade route from the Daugava River to Pskov passed through
Ugaunia. The trading activity of the Livs in this area is also documented. For
example, in a Novgorodian birch-bark document from between 1130 and 1150,
a certain Ilia and Dmitrii write to a Liv called Mostka in Pskov claiming debts
for goods sold to the Livs (blankets, carpet, and cloth).240 The increasing

235  Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs,” pp. 88, 100–01.

236  H CL XI.7, p. 54; HCL XIII.5, pp. 71–72.
237  Ain Mäesalu, “Die Burg Otepää als ein Zentrum in Südostestland im 11.–14. Jh.,” in
Castella maris Baltici, vol. 1, ed. Knut Drake (Stockholm, 1993) (Archaeologica Medii Aevi
Finlandiae 1), pp. 143–48; Tvauri, Muinas-Tartu, pp. 232–33, 241–54.
238  H CL XII.6, p. 61.
239  The fact that discussions took place in 1208 regarding the wrong committed prior to 1201
does not mean that the Riga-Pskov trade route was closed before the truce of 1212 (as
proposed by Benninghoven, Rigas Entstehung, p. 53). See also HCL XIX.4, p. 127.
240  Valentin L. Ianin and Andrei A. Zalizniak, “Берестяные грамоты из Новгородских
раскопок 1997. г,” in Вопросы Языкознания 1998, 3, 26–31, no. 776 (ко либиноу ко
Мостоке); Rybina, Торговля, pp. 287, 327.
116 chapter 2

i­ mportance of the German merchants on the Daugava and the subjugation of

the Livs undoubtedly led to commercial rivalry. The proposal by the Livs to
steal the goods in Ugaunia either reflects the start of this rivalry or a specific
dispute.
While Bishop Albert’s interests in the early 13th century seemed to be
focused on the Daugava, the Sword Brothers turned their attention to Sackala
and Ugaunia. The start of the war against these lands was primarily their idea
and one that was potentially extremely dangerous in view of the weakness of
the Rigan camp and its dependency on the seasonal crusaders. The Order’s
interests also coincided with those of its Lettgallian allies and perhaps also
a merchant group in Riga in view of the difficulty in using the Daugava trade
route in the first decade of the 13th century because of the continual military
activity.
In 1210 Prince Mstislav Mstislavich of Novgorod and his brother Prince
Vladimir of Pskov invaded Ugaunia and laid siege to Odenpäh, which was
forced to buy peace. Many people were then baptized by Russian priests. The
Russians promised to send more priests to continue with the baptism, but
this never occurred because the Ugaunians soon received priests from Riga
and allowed themselves to be baptized by them.241 The Russian baptism
is not questioned by Henry of Livonia: the Rigans simply arrived before the
Russians following their conquest of Odenpäh that same year. They had, as the
chronicler is able to show, taken the apostolic duty of baptism more seriously.
Baptism was needless to say for both sides equally a sign of political power.
What was the connection between the attack on Odenpäh by Vladimir and
Mstislav, and Riga? At the beginning of 1210 Bishop Albert had agreed peace
with Ugaunia, which was rejected by the Sword Brothers, presumably against
Albert’s will.242 Relations between Albert and Pskov had been strengthened by
the marriage of Vladimir’s daughter and the bishop’s brother Theodoric. The
chronicler mentions this marriage for the first time in early 1212.243 This alli-
ance between the opposite ends of the Daugava-Pskov trade route must have
been sealed earlier, however, possibly before the Pskov campaign of 1210 or the
compensation claim by the merchants in 1208 for the stolen goods. Theodoric
was in Livonia from 1203.244 The alliance between the bishop and Pskov made
it possible for them to apply pressure jointly on Ugaunia, which had control of
the route. It appears that the campaign conducted by the Mstislavich line had

241  H CL XIV.2, p. 74; NL1, pp. 52, 250; Vahtre, Muinasaja loojang, pp. 65–66.
242  H CL XIII.5, p. 72.
243  H CL XV.13, pp. 100–01.
244  H CL VII.1, pp. 18–19.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 117

not damaged the bishop’s interests. In the winter of 1210–11, when the Rigans
launched an offensive against Sontagana, they were supported by a maxima
turba Ruthenorum. The chronicler adds that Pskov “was then at peace with
us”.245 The collaboration with Pskov also gave Bishop Albert the opportunity
to put pressure on the Sword Brothers, who had consolidated their control in
Lettgallia with the help of the local elders, including those obliged to pay trib-
ute to Pskov. When, on the Order’s initiative, Odenpäh was attacked in 1210,
Bishop Albert happened to be absent from Livonia.
The view has been expressed in the historiography that the collabora-
tion between Albert and Vladimir is tantamount to an agreement to divide
Estonia between them. Before the offensive against Odenpäh (i.e. at the end
of 1209), Prince Mstislav of Novgorod launched an attack on the Chuds in
T[u]rma (Търма), where he obtained plentiful booty.246 The place concerned
is probably Torma near the later town of Wesenberg.247 At the beginning of
1212 Riga attacked Ugaunia, Waiga, and Jerwia at the initiative of the bishops in
Livonia at the time (Theodoric of Estonia, Philip of Ratzeburg, Yso of Verden,
and Bernard of Paderborn). When Prince Mstislav of Novgorod heard that the
Germans were in Estonia, he too immediately set off with his army for Waiga
and Jerwia. Not finding any Germans there, he invaded Harria and besieged
the castle of Warbola, which paid a ransom to free itself from the encirclement.
After the Russian campaign, the Sackalians and Ugaunians began to raise an
army. The Rigans thereupon left Fellin without completing the baptism they
had recently begun there. The priests were pursued and killed by Lembitu,
the most famous of the Estonian elders of Sackala. The Estonian army, taking
advantage of the absence of the Pskov troops that were in Estonia together
with Mstislav, wreaked devastation during a rapid strike on Pskov.248 In the
account of the campaign conducted by Mstislav and Pskov it is particularly
important how the words et non inventis Theutonicis progressus est in Harien

245  H CL XIV.10, p. 81; Benninghoven, Orden, p. 105; Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, p. 99.
246  N L1, pp. 52, 250. Cf. Evgeniia L. Nazarova, “Князь Ярослав Владимирович и его роль
в Ливонской политике Пскова. Конец 20-х–начало 40-х гг. ХIII в.,” in Археология и
история Пскова и Псковской земли. Материалы научного семинара 1996–1999, ed.
Valentin V. Sedov (Pskov, 2000), p. 39, which looks at marriage ties as one of the options
for Catholic propaganda in Pskov.
247  Berezhkov, Хронология, p. 253; Vahtre, Muinasaja loojang, p. 66.
248  H CL XV.7–10, pp. 97–100; NL1, pp. 52, 250–251; Berezhkov, Хронология, pp. 253–54; Enn
Tarvel, “Livländische Chroniken des 13. Jahrhunderts als Quelle für die Geschichte des
Schwertbrüderordens und Livlands,” in Werkstatt des Historikers der mittelalterlichen
Ritterorden. Quellenkundliche Probleme und Forschungsmethoden, ed. Zenon Hubert
Nowak (Toruń, 1987) (OM 4), pp. 176–77; Vahtre, Muinasaja loojang, pp. 89–91.
118 chapter 2

are interpreted. Did the prince intend to attack the Rigans or join with them?
In the case of an intended attack, it would have been logical to pursue them
rather than set off in a completely different direction towards Warbola. Once
the Russian military campaign had started the priests too had to leave Fellin,
having arrived shortly before to carry out the baptisms following the peace
concluded between Riga and Sackala. It does appear that here Mstislav and the
Rigans acted more like allies. Yet one can hardly believe that northern Estonia
had been ‘promised’ to Rus’ (i.e. Novgorod and/or Pskov). This must have been
a political collaboration between Bishop Albert and Vladimir of Pskov249 and
by extension with Novgorod, too, which from a Russian perspective continued
the traditional relationship of dominance of Rus’ with the Estonian lands: here
they alternated their raids without the subservience of any Estonian region
being formalized over the long term. Ugaunia and its main centre Odenpäh250
were obviously able to keep control of the relevant section of the trade route.
Pskov’s promise to begin the baptisms in Ugaunia in 1210 was a form of subju-
gation long known from the practice of the Rigan missionaries and signified
Ugaunia’s subordination to Pskov. This could not be accepted by the Sword
Brothers, however.251
Another aspect of Albert’s relations with Pskov was his pressure on the
Sword Brothers. The marriage of the knight Theodoric confirmed the collab-
oration and consequently limited the Order’s activity, since its claim to rule
Estonia was at first not explicitly approved by the bishop.252 For Pskov, on the
other hand, this alliance guaranteed a strong relationship with the flourishing
city of Riga during a period in which their political interests in Lettgallia or
Ugaunia had not yet come into conflict.253
After the ice had melted in 1212 and Bishop Albert had sailed for Germany,
Henry relates how Prince Vladimir Mstislavich was driven from Pskov, which
he attributes to the marriage of Vladimir’s daughter and the bishop’s brother

249  Johansen, “Lippstadt,” p. 110; cf. Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert, p. 103; Evgeniia L.
Nazarova, “Псков и Ливония в 40–90 гг. ХIII в.,” in Civitas et castrum ad Mare Balticum.
Baltijas arheoloġijas un vēstures problēmas dzelzs laikmetā un viduslaikos. Rakstu
krājums—veltījums prof. Dr. habil. hist. Andrim Caunem 65 gadu dzīves jubilejā, ed. Ēvalds
Mugurēvičs and Ieva Ose (Riga, 2002), p. 593.
250  Dorpat had been razed to the ground by the Lettgallians (Pskov’s allies?) and abandoned
in the winter preceding 1211: HCL XV.7, p. 96.
251  Cf. Benninghoven, Orden, p. 140.
252  See Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs,” pp. 67–70; Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert,
pp. 91–103; Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 94–97, 104–07.
253  Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert, pp. 104–05; Dircks, “Krieg,” p. 126; Pickhan, Gospodin
Pskov, p. 100; Schmidt, “Bild,” p. 515.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 119

Theodoric. Vladimir and his retinue, who had fled with him, first went to
Polotsk and then Riga (see p. 110). According to Henry’s chronicle, the expul-
sion took place in early 1212. On 1 February of the same year Mstislav began
his campaign against Harria and Jerwia. The description of this offensive in
the Novgorod Chronicle already refers to Vsevolod Mstislavich-Borisovich, also
descended from the Smolensk dynasty, as prince of Pskov. It is possible that
Vladimir was in Riga in the spring.254 When Albert returned to Riga, Vladimir
received gifts from him and his blessing, and the bishop took care of him.255
Although the chronicler’s aim here may be to highlight Vladimir’s subsequent
lack of gratitude, the treatment of the prince in accordance with his rank and
status should not be doubted. This may be one of the reasons why Vladimir
could not remain longer in Polotsk: maintaining the prince and his entourage
was costly while his lodging as a prince in the service of another based in a cas-
tle subordinate to Polotsk was obviously not an option. Vladimir did not seek
refuge with his brother Mstislav in Novgorod either. It has been argued that this
is a sign of the disagreements between the brothers and their different Livonia
policies,256 but there may just as well have been other reasons. Mstislav and
Vladimir acted as allies both before and after these events. Vladimir’s heredi-
tary lands of Toropets and Rzhev were probably by then under the rule of the
third brother, Davyd (d. 1226/27).
In 1211 and 1212 a virulent plague that swept across Livonia257 may have
affected Pskov too. The Russian Veche towns often underwent a change of ruler
during times of hunger and plague, since the opposing factions were able to
exploit the resulting social unrest. Approximately at the same time, Vladimir
was active in the vicinity of Velikiye Luki against the Lithuanians, possibly to
the detriment of Pskov’s burghers.258 Pskov had not profited as much from
the alliance between Vladimir and Albert as it had hoped: the Sword Brothers
were increasingly bringing Tolowa under their control and had also occu-
pied Ugaunia, which Vladimir had failed to conquer when he had occupied
Odenpäh.259 Speculation as to causes must of course must of course remain

254  Cf. Bauer, “Bischof Albert,” p. 82; Berezhkov, Хронология, pp. 256–57; Vahtre, Muinasaja
loojang, p. 92; Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, p. 99.
255  H CL XV.13, pp. 100–01; XVI.1, p. 101.
256  Schmidt, “Bild,” pp. 515–16; Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, p. 100.
257  H CL XV.7, p. 95.
258  N L1, pp. 52, 249; Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, pp. 99–100.
259  Friedrich Koch, Livland und das Reich bis zum Jahre 1225 (Posen, 1943) (Quellen und
Forschungen zur baltischen Geschichte 4), p. 48; Benninghoven, Orden, p. 120; Schmidt,
“Bild,” pp. 515–16.
120 chapter 2

hypothetical. The essential point in this context is that the quarrels between
Vladimir and the leading factions in Pskov were evidently not of a religious
nature or attributable to Vladimir’s collaboration with Albert the Catholic or
‘German’,260 but had purely political causes.
As for Mstislav’s Warbola campaign, there is no reason to reject the possi-
bility that the Russians and the Rigans had agreed on a joint offensive, which,
however, failed due to lack of coordination—Henry’s chronicle constantly
mentions other similar cases. This does not mean, however, that there was
an agreement to divide up Estonia between them. Mstislav, Vladimir, Albert,
and the Sword Brothers, as well as the burghers of Novgorod and Pskov, all
had their own interests, which might occasionally overlap without needing to
be laid down in a formal treaty. Sackala and Ugaunia initially raised an army
against Pskov, going on to attack the Rigan priests, who, from an Estonian point
of view, were just as much their enemies as the Pskovians. Novgorod and Pskov
were not involved in any military conflicts with Livonia until Vladimir returned
to Pskov. Thus in 1213 the father-in-law of Vsevolod of Gerzike, the Lithuanian
chieftain Dangerutis, agreed a treaty with Novgorod,261 but his capture by the
Sword Brothers on his way back home certainly does not mean that this treaty
was explicitly aimed against Livonia.
In 1216 Vladimir emerged once again as prince of Pskov, but now his relation-
ship with Livonia was indeed very different, at least in Henry’s view: “When
the Grand Prince Vladimir of Polotsk died there arose a new adversary of the
Livonian church, Vladimir of Pskov, who rose up with a large army of Russians
from Pskov and came into Ugaunia and encamped at Mount Odenpäh.” The
conflict arose over Ugaunia or was at least exacerbated by it. This territory was
claimed by Pskov and Vladimir, learning from the Rigan practice, after the bap-
tism promise, although it had in fact been subjugated by the Sword Brothers.
In Odenpäh Vladimir acted as though he was in an occupied land, staying for
a while in the castle and collecting taxes.262 At the same time the Pskovians
resolved to demand their tribute from Tolowa (see p. 112). Once Vladimir
had finished collecting taxes, the bishop’s men, the Sword Brothers, and the
Ugaunians formed a united front against the Russians of Odenpäh and the
pagans. In the first few days of 1217 they set off from Odenpäh to plunder v­ ersus

260  Thus for example, Hellmann, Lettenland, p. 139; Boris Ia. Ramm, Папство и Русь в Х–ХV
веках (Moscow-Leningrad, 1959), p. 102; Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert, p. 108.
261  H CL XVII.3, p. 113.
262  H CL XX.3, p. 136.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 121

Nogardiam. This is presumably the same raid as that of the “Lithuanians” on

the river Shelon mentioned in the Novgorod Chronicle under 1217/6725.263
Vladimir, the Novgorodian army led by the posadnik Tverdislav Mikhalkovich,
and their Estonian allies from Ösel and Harria, as well as the Sackalians, who
had been baptized by the Rigans, besieged Odenpäh in 1217. The troops who
rushed to the aid of the besieged, among whom were Sword Brothers, crusad-
ers, and the bishop’s men, including Vladimir’s son-in-law Theodoric, were
able to penetrate to the stronghold but were forced to give in due to lack of
food supplies. The Rigans left the castle following negotiations and peace was
agreed. Vladimir invited Theodoric to Pskov in confirmation of the peace, but
the Novgorodians treated him as though he were one of their prisoners, taking
him from Vladimir. Peace was confirmed by Albert’s emissaries in Novgorod,
who also put in a good word for Theodoric. The chronicler thus creates the
impression that Novgorod had sought to continue the joint ‘conspiracy’ with
the Estonians rather than seeking peace. The envoys from Novgorod are none-
theless mentioned in Livonia under the year 1217.264 It seems at any rate that at
least a provisional agreement had been reached, since the Novgorodian army
did not return to Estonia until 1218, during which time Novgorod had changed
prince twice: after Mstislav ‘Udaloi’ had left for south-western Rus’, Sviatoslav
Mstislavich-Borisovich of Smolensk, followed by his brother Vsevolod, acted as
princes of Novgorod. Theodoric, for whom Novgorod hoped to receive ransom
money, is mentioned as being in Livonia again as of 1220.265
The Novgorod Russians had probably treated Ugaunia as a subject land since
1217 where they considered themselves still entitled to collect the tribute first
introduced in 1210. The various conflicts and peace agreements thus affected
Ugaunia and Tolowa; any Russian campaigns to other regions would have only
been raids for plunder without any greater aim. The occupation of Odenpäh in
1217 does not reflect the claim of Rus’ to the entire Estonian region.266 Russian
principalities were still allies for the other Estonian lands, such as Ösel.
After the crusaders arrived in Riga in 1217, the Estonians once again sought
the support against the Rigan church, but the deployment of the Russian army

263  H CL XX.5, pp. 137–38; NL1, pp. 57, 257–58; Benninghoven, Orden, p. 140; Berezhkov,
Хронология, p. 254; Vahtre, Muinasaja loojang, pp. 115–16.
264  H CL XX.5, 7–8, XXI.1, pp. 138–41; NL1, pp. 57, 258; Berezhkov, Хронология, p. 254; Vahtre,
Muinasaja loojang, pp. 116–19.
265  H CL XXIII.9, p. 164.
266  Cf. for the opposite view, for example, Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert, p. 123; Vladimir
T. Pashuto, Внешняя политика Древней Руси (Moscow, 1968), p. 231; Rebane, “Denmark,”
p. 192; Krötzl, “Finnen,” p. 52.
122 chapter 2

was delayed as a result of the change of ruler in Novgorod. It can once again
be seen that the military offensive did not depend on the prince but on the
leaders of the Novgorod town community. The army from the Estonian lands
assembled in Sackala suffered a defeat at the Battle of Fellin in the spring.
When Sackala was subjugated once again, narrates the chronicler, its people
had turned apostate “as a result of agreement with the pagans and Russians”.267
Almost immediately after the death of Emperor Otto IV in May 1218, on
whose support Bishop Albert had been able to rely throughout this time,268
the latter met King Valdemar of Denmark in June and, as Henry puts it in
his chronicle, invited him to lead a war in Livonia. Twice in this section the
chronicle stresses that the enemies of the Livonian church were the Estonians
and the Russians.269 In the historiography, too, it has often been pointed out
that this request for assistance occurred after the Russian threat following the
defeat at Odenpäh in 1217 and the expected military campaign of Novgorod.270
Moreover, Bishop Albert may have been looking for an ally against the Sword
Brothers.271 On the other hand, it is quite feasible that the Danish king still saw
Livonia as his area of interest. For instance, Denmark had control of shipping
transport to Livonia. Now the claim to Livonia’s submission to Danish sover-
eignty was reiterated.
In the late summer a military expedition left Riga for Reval and Harria. As
they passed through Sackala, the Rigans came across the envoys from Ösel
and the Russians assembling their army. The great Russian army led by Prince
Vsevolod Mstislavich-Borisovich of Novgorod and Prince Vladimir Mstislavich
of Pskov was already in Ugaunia. Vladimir’s son Iaroslav was also on his way
there with a separate contingent. According to Henry, Rus’ had spent two years
preparing for this campaign. After the fighting, known as the Battle of Puide
(in southern Estonia), the Russians devastated Ymera and surrounded Wenden
(see p. 113).
At the beginning of 1219 the peaceful state of affairs between Pskov and
Livonia seems to have been restored.272 This lasted until 1221, when Pskov
rejected the peace agreement reached at Odenpäh.273 The official peace should

267  H CL XXI.2, 5, pp. 141–44; Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 143–45.

268  Hucker, Kaiser Otto, pp. 184–87.
269  H CL XXII.1, pp. 146–47.
270  For example, Johansen, Nordische Mission, p. 103; Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert,
pp. 122–28; Skyum-Nielsen, Kvinde, p. 283.
271  H CL III.2, p. 12; Tarvel, “Dänische Ostseepolitik,” p. 57.
272  H CL XXII.9, pp. 152–53.
273  H CL XXV.3, p. 182.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 123

have been stable from 1217 but this was not the case. A possible explanation for
this is that Henry glosses over the conflicts between Bishop Albert and the
Sword Brothers, presenting the Rigans as unified at every opportunity, insofar
as he contrasts them with the Danes and other rivals. Consequently, it is not
always possible to establish which of the power elements in Livonia was now
leading the struggle against Pskov and Novgorod. The Sword Brothers certainly
seem to have played a much larger role in these conflicts than the representa-
tives of the bishop’s camp.
In 1221 Livonia was ravaged once again by Novgorod near Wenden, Ymera,
and in Ugaunia.274 The sources do not explicitly mention any possible role
played by Pskov, but there are nonetheless clues as to its participation: the
rejection of the peace agreement and the presence of Lithuanians in Pskov on
their way back point towards a joint venture. A succession of counter-attacks
was launched from Livonia in response as far as the church non longe a civitate
Nogardia, from which the Lettgallians took icons, bells, incense vessels, and
other ecclesiastical objects as valuables. The Ugaunians and the Sackalians
plundered Votia and Ingria, meting out vengeance two or three times to the
Russians according to the chronicler. In this context, Henry refers to the build-
ing of castles in Sackala and the dread of Rus’ in Ugaunia.275
The war in Livonia was now also drawing the attention of the north-west-
ern Russian princes due to the primacy of the Suzdal dynasty in Novgorod.276
This heralded the start of considerable changes in the relations of Novgorod
and Pskov with Livonia during the next decade. While the rule of the Sword
Brothers and the bishop of Riga became consolidated in Ugaunia, Sackala, and
Tolowa, ‘German’ Livonia became not only a rival but also a partner of certain
political groups in Pskov and Novgorod. Their policy was aimed against the
princes of Vladimir-Suzdal, whose attempts to subordinate the power struc-
tures of Pskov and Novgorod must have become increasingly evident. The dif-
ferences between Novgorod and the princes of Vladimir-Suzdal were not that

274  H CL XXV.3, pp. 181–83; NL1, pp. 60–61, 262–63; Berezhkov, Хронология, p. 254, Vahtre,
Muinasaja loojang, pp. 151–52. The representative of the same Suzdal dynasty, the minor
Vsevolod Iur’evich, now acted as prince of Novgorod. The Russians had previously
reached an agreement with the Lithuanians, whom Henry here calls Litowini, following
the Russian practice.
275  H CL XXV.5–6, pp. 184–85; Vahtre, Muinasaja loojang, pp. 151–53. Evgeniia Nazarova
(“Место Ливонии,” pp. 357–58) suggests that an agreement with Pskov allowed the
Livonian troops to cross Pskov’s territory.
276  Nazarenko, “Западноевропейские источники,” p. 393. See also Evgeniia L. Naza­rova,
“Низовские дружины в ливонской политике новгородских князей. 20–60 гг. ХIII в.,”
in История и культура Ростовской земли 1997 (Rostov, 1998), pp. 15–19.
124 chapter 2

pronounced at first, however; more important was the joint struggle, especially
for the conquest of the Estonian regions of Ugaunia and Sackala.
Novgorod and Pskov further consolidated their position in Estonia in 1223,
when the Estonians concluded a peace treaty with Rus’ and Russian troops
advanced towards Reval, Fellin, Odenpäh, and other towns “to fight against
the Germans and Latins and all the Christians”.277 For the chronicler, these
Russians, by helping apostates, had separated themselves from Christians,
which was why they were subsequently treated so harshly, more harshly than
the pagans.278 For Sackala and Ugaunia, the agreement involved a certain
degree of subjection to Rus’. This also manifested itself in lodging the Russian
princes in the castles. Waremarus, the Russian princeps in Fellin, was killed by
the Lettgallians in early 1223.279 Moreover, the presence of the troops required
that they be housed and fed at the expense of the native population. Bishop
Albert did not, however, see any serious danger for Livonia from Russian con-
trol in these districts. On the contrary, he exploited this situation to make
demands of the Sword Brothers, claiming a third of Estonia for himself and
another third for Bishop Hermann of Leal (Dorpat).280
The embassy from Sackala (and Ösel?) to the grand prince of Suzdal, Iurii
Vsevolodovich, points furthermore to the possibility that there were groups in
Novgorod who did not wish for a continuation of the conflict with Livonia. The
Novgorod and Pskov army of Prince Iaroslav, the brother of the grand prince,
consolidated its power in southern Estonia and besieged Reval without suc-
cess, in addition to the pillaging carried out on the advice of Ösel, as Henry
narrates.281 The raid shows that Iaroslav, apart from the attempt to subjugate
southern Estonia, did not have any other military interests beyond the pursuit
of booty, since Rus’ had not so far had any conflicts with Denmark’s Estonian
dominion.
If Iaroslav’s raid remained an isolated episode, Novgorod sent the former
prince of Kokenhusen, Viachko, with money and men to Dorpat in order to
consolidate its power in Estonia. Viachko, who appeared “like a snare and

277  H CL XXVI.8, p. 191; HCL XXVII.3, p. 196; Annales Stadenses auctore Alberto, ed. Johannes M.
Lappenberg, in MGH SS, vol. 16 (Hanover, 1859), p. 358.
278  H CL XXVII.2, pp. 195–196.
279  H CL XXVII.1, p. 193. He might have been of Scandinavian descent. See Matuzova and
Nazarova, Крестоносцы, p. 185.
280  H CL XXVI.13, p. 192.
281  H CL XXVII.3, pp. 196–97; NL1, pp. 61, 263; Лаврентьевская летопись, p. 503. Cf. HCL
XXVII.6, p. 199; Laakmann, “Estland,” p. 249; Hellmann, “Begegnungen,” p. 132; Berezhkov,
Хронология, p. 267; Nazarova, “Низовские дружины,” p. 18.
Crusades in Livonia and their Impact on Rus ’ 125

a great devil” to the Sackalians and other Estonians,282 was anxious to gain
possession of as much as possible of Ugaunia and the neighbouring lands by
means of tribute and plunder raids.283 The relationship between Pskov and
Novgorod nevertheless remains unknown in this context. Whereas Vladimir
Mstislavich remained the prince of Pskov, the Suzdal Vsevolodovich had long
been on hostile terms with the royal house of Smolensk. Vladimir himself had
once laid claim to Ugaunia. Sending Viachko from Novgorod to the Estonian
territories could be seen as a sign of the opposition to Pskov that was gradually
becoming apparent.
It was only now, in 1223 and 1224, that the Russians began to take seri-
ous steps to consolidate their power in Estonian territory. Their model was
undoubtedly none other than ‘German’ Livonia. This revealed the advantages
of continuous rule both in military and economic terms as opposed to the
looser form of dependence based on tribute. However, the permanent admin-
istration of a territory would require much greater resources than Novgorod
and Pskov evidently had at their disposal, as well as necessitating the rapid
assembly of armies around a permanent centre. In Livonia there were groups
specially organised for this purpose, namely the Sword Brothers, the crusaders,
and the bishop’s vassals, whereas in Rus’ the druzhina (дружина) (retinue) of
a prince were always travelling with him and were therefore not in a position
to occupy an area on a permanent basis.
The bishop’s envoys exhorted Viachko to break away from the apostates, but
he refused because Novgorod and the Russian princes had promised him the
right of possession of Dorpat during his lifetime as well as support against the
Germans.284 Although Henry is highlighting Viachko’s continuing treachery
and collaboration with the rebels, Viachko had been given the chance to leave
the castle unimpeded with his entourage and possessions during the siege of
Dorpat in 1224. After the castle was captured, however, all Russians were killed
except one messenger.285 This once again reveals Henry’s view of Viachko as
the Christian helper of apostates. This attitude cannot of course be extended
to all Russians or schismatics. It was Henry’s personal opinion regarding a spe-
cific individual.
Even during the siege of Dorpat there were rumours in the Rigan army about
the approaching Russians. Henry reports the gathering of the Novgorod army

282  H CL, pp. 197–98 XXVII.5; pp. 199–201 XXVIII.1–2. Cf. HCL, p. 70 XIII.4.
283  Odenpäh was already under the control of Bishop Hermann by the beginning of 1224:
HCL XXVIII.2, pp. 200–01.
284  H CL XXVIII.3, p. 201.
285  H CL XXVIII.5–6, pp. 202–05; NL1, pp. 61, 264; Berezhkov, Хронология, p. 267.
126 chapter 2

in Pskov, which nonetheless broke up when it heard of the castle’s c­ apture.286

This piece of information is not confirmed by the Russian sources. What is
certain, however, is that the war had come to an end for the time being after
the capture of Dorpat. That very year, in 1224, envoys came from Pskov and
Novgorod to Riga. Peaceful relations were reestablished and Pskov’s right to
the tribute that it had always collected in Tolowa was reconfirmed. At the
same time, an agreement laid down the division of Tolowa between the bishop
and the Sword Brothers,287 confirmed the following year by the papal legate
William of Modena.288 Novgorod was forced to tolerate the loss of the Dorpat
region because of disagreements with its Suzdal princes.289
Vladimir Mstislavich is mentioned in the sources for the last time in the
winter of 1225–26, when he fought the Lithuanians at Torzhok with his son and
his brother and Iaroslav Vsevolodovich. His politics were increasingly aligned
with those of Suzdal, signifying dependence on a growing force in Rus’. It is
not known when he died nor whether he lost power in Pskov and, if so, when.290
Henry probably would have mentioned this in his chronicle if it had occurred
prior to 1227 given that he was generally well informed of Russian affairs and
was hostile towards Vladimir. In fact, he names the prince of Pskov for the last
time in 1218.
During the conquest of Estonia the idea manifested itself clearly that the
baptism of an area simultaneously meant subjugation of the territory. But this
contest was of importance primarily in terms of relations among Catholics
themselves, not between Catholic and Orthodox powers. The crusaders’ con-
quest of Estonia began in cooperation with Pskov and developed into rivalry
only later. It was a political rivalry, not a religious one. The rhetoric against
Russians in Livonian sources was directed against certain individuals or pro-
voked by their role as allies of apostate Estonians in particular military situ-
ations. Russian territory itself was never the target of crusaders’ campaigns.

286  H CL XXVIII.5–6, pp. 202–05.

287  H CL XXVIII.9, XXIX.1, pp. 206–07.
288  H CL XXIX.4, p. 211.
289  N L1, pp. 63–64, 267–68.
290  N L1, pp. 64, 269; Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, pp. 103–04; Cf. Fennell, Crisis, p. 92; Valentin L.
Ianin, Новгород и Литва. Пограничные ситуации ХIII–ХV веков (Moscow, 1998),
pp. 49–51; Nazarova, “Место Ливонии,” p. 359.
 chapter 3

Livonia and Rus’ in the 1230s and 1240s

3.1 Livonia, Pskov, and Novgorod c. 1230

The 1240s has often been regarded in historiography as being the most impor-
tant period for relations between Rus’ and Latin Europe during the Middle
Ages. The Battle of the Neva in 1240 and the Battle of the Ice at Lake Peipus
in 1242 have been seen as crucial turning points in the historical development
of relations between Rus’ and its western neighbours. The immediate back-
ground to the events of the 1240s dates back, however, to the previous decade.
Moreover, it would first have to be shown that these battles and other events in
the 1240s were indeed exceptional in the context of the 13th century as a whole.
The Novgorod Chronicle describes the military campaign of Prince Iaroslav
Vsevolodovich of Novgorod against the Tavastians under the year 1228. This
campaign was a failure because a quarrel took place within the Novgorod army
caused by disaffection with the prince. In the same year Iaroslav led his army
together with Novgorod’s posadnik Ivanko and its tysiatskii Viacheslav towards
Pskov. When the Pskovians found out about their approach, they holed them-
selves up in the city and would not let the prince enter. Prince Iaroslav returned
to Novgorod and rumours began to circulate that he wanted to take the most
eminent men of Pskov prisoner. In Novgorod Iaroslav convened the Veche and
declared that he had had the best intentions towards Pskov: he had merely
wanted to deliver gifts, but Pskov had dishonoured him. Iaroslav then raised
an army from Pereiaslav, but this time he made known that his intention was
to attack Riga. It was a large army and its garrisoning in Novgorod caused the
price of food to rise. These tensions must be seen in the context of the resis-
tance of Pskov and Novgorod to rule by the Suzdal dynasty as represented
by Iaroslav.
When news reached Pskov that Iaroslav’s troops were ready, the town
agreed a treaty with Riga and requested military aid in the event of an attack
by Novgorod or Prince Iaroslav. The treaty was guaranteed by sending forty
hostages from Pskov to Riga. The Novgorodians themselves assumed that the
attack on Riga was merely a pretext used by the prince to disguise his real aim,
namely the defeat of Pskov. The prince sent a messenger to Pskov asking it take
part in the attack on Riga, seeking to convince the people that Iaroslav had
no evil intentions towards them as long as his opponents were handed over
to him. Pskov’s response was to refuse to take part in the campaign or to hand

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004284753_005

128 chapter 3

over its leaders. The Novgorod Chronicle represents Pskov’s perspective as

follows: if the prince truly intended to kill the Pskovians and abduct their
women and children, then he was no better than the pagans. Novgorod too
refused to take part in the campaign following Pskov’s own refusal. The offen-
sive did not take place and the army had to be disbanded.
The Livonian auxiliary army then stationed in Pskov and the “Germans,
Chuds, Lettgallians and Livs” also returned home, but the men who had
received a reward (придатъкъ) from the prince of Novgorod were driven from
Pskov: “Follow your prince, you aren’t our brothers”. Iaroslav and his wife then
left Novgorod for Pereiaslav, leaving his sons Fedor and Aleksandr, who were
still minors, and his bailiff (тиунъ) Iakim behind. When the famine which
had struck Novgorod lingered on because of heavy rainfall and a bad harvest,
Archbishop Arsenii, who was accused of corrupting the prince, was removed
from office. In the city the houses of the followers of the Suzdal Prince Iaroslav
were plundered. Boris Negochevich was appointed the new tysiatskii. Iaroslav
rejected an agreement, for he did not consent to the conditions demanded by
the city regarding the prince’s powers. Iakim fled the city with Iaroslav’s two
sons. Mikhail Vsevolodovich from Chernigov was elected the new prince, arriv-
ing in Novgorod in 1230.1
The Russian historian Evgeniia Nazarova has suggested that the fears har-
boured by Pskov that Iaroslav wanted to assume control there and take reprisals
against his opponents had a basis in fact.2 For shortly before Iaroslav’s failed
military campaign Prince Vladimir Mstislavich, the same who had reigned
intermittently in Pskov for at least fifteen years, is supposed to have died. In
this case, the throne of Pskov may have been vacant and Iaroslav Vsevolodovich
could have attempted to take power by force. However, the prince did not dare
rely on support from only his small retinue and the contingent from Novgorod,
which he considered untrustworthy in any case, and thus deployed the military
might of north-eastern Rus’. This turned out to be a threat to Novgorod itself,
not to mention the supply problems caused by the size of the army. Pskov’s
participation in the attack on Livonia would have constituted a violation of the
defensive treaty concluded with Riga and endangered the hostages held there.
This treaty had already been agreed when Iaroslav announced his offensive.
The followers of the prince of Suzdal, who had themselves been corrupted by

1  N L1, pp. 65–68; 271–74. Cf. PL 2, p. 79. See also Valerov, Новгород, pp. 145–59.
2  Evgeniia L. Nazarova, “К истории Псковско-Ливонского договора 1228 г.,” in Восточная
Европа в древности и средневековье. Международная договорная практика Древней
Руси. IХ Чтения памяти Владимира Т. Пашуто, ed. Elena A. Melnikova et al. (Moscow;
1997), pp. 46–49; Matuzova and Nazarova, Крестоносцы, p. 302.
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 129

the prince, were banished from Pskov, after which his opponents gained the
upper hand in Novgorod too.3
Pskov’s argument against the plan to attack Riga was, according to the chron-
icles, the wrong that Novgorod had inflicted on Pskov in the previous Livonia
offensives. The campaigns of 1217 against Odenpäh, 1221 against Wenden, and
1223 against Reval are mentioned.4 The Novgorodians and/or their prince had
allegedly kept the entire booty, whereas the Pskovians were only left to suf-
fer under Livonia’s retaliation campaigns. Iaroslav’s aim of attacking Livonia
appears to have been a tactical move to gain prestige in Novgorod and Pskov
or to recover the prestige he had lost. Pskov was under pressure but could not
place hope in the traditional ally of Novgorod. Its position towards the prince
wavered and it never had any choice but to seek allies in Livonia. Now when
the son of Vladimir Mstislavich claimed the throne of Pskov, he was also able
to rely on support from his family ties with the bishopric of Dorpat: the knight
Theodoric, Vladimir’s son-in-law, was the brother of Bishop Hermann of Leal
(Dorpat), and of Bishop Albert (d. 1229). Pskov and Novgorod had agreed a
peace with Livonia in 1224–25 which was on the whole favourable to them.
Pskov once again received tribute from Tolowa and the fighting over Estonian
territory came to an end. Once conditions in Estonia and Lettgallia stabilized,
Pskov and Livonia became natural allies, dependent on one another against
their more powerful neighbours. The fact that Livonia subsequently supported
the factions in Pskov opposed to Suzdal may simply be the accidental result
of the balance of power. There is, as a result, no reason to refer to a party
‘disposed to the West’ and one ‘hostile to the West’.
The Novgorod Chronicle cites “Riga” and the “Rigans” as Pskov’s allies. A few
years later it mentions Dorpat and Odenpäh in this role instead. This appears
to reflect Bishop Albert’s great authority and prestige. Upon his death, his rela-
tionship with Pskov was therefore continued by his brother, Bishop Hermann
of Dorpat.

3.2 The Legation of Baldwin of Aulne

Bishop Albert of Riga died on 17 January 1229. The cathedral chapter of Riga
elected Nicholas, a canon of Magdeburg Cathedral, as his successor, while the
archbishop of Bremen, seeking to reestablish his rights as metropolitan, chose

3  Martin Dimnik, Mikhail, Prince of Chernigov and Grand Prince of Kiev 1224–1246 (Toronto,
1981) (Studies and Texts 52), pp. 26–29.
4  Ianin, Средневековый Новгород, p. 262.
130 chapter 3

Albert Suerbeer, a canon of Bremen Cathedral. In April 1230 the pope entrusted
his legate Cardinal-Deacon Otto of St Nicola in Carcere (d. c. 1250) with the res-
olution of the affair. Cardinal Otto delegated the matter to the Walloon monk
Baldwin from the Cistercian monastery of Aulne-sur-Sambre in the diocese
of Liège. Cardinal Otto himself visited Denmark in the summer of 1230.5 It is
therefore likely that the dispute over the Rigan election was also related to the
conflict between Denmark and the Sword Brothers over possession of north-
ern and western Estonia.6 Baldwin arrived in Riga in July 1230.7 Despite being
the representative of the head of Christendom, the only authority his position
had was spiritual. He could only enforce his decisions in practice if he had the
backing of a major Livonian power. Baldwin instead attempted to act inde-
pendently, which brought him into conflict with both the Sword Brothers and
the bishopric of Riga. He nonetheless achieved some successes at the start.
At the turn of 1230–31 the Curonians submitted themselves to the church of
Riga in consequence of the famine afflicting Livonia, as well as Rus’, and it was
Baldwin who agreed the treaties of submission with them.
Circumstances changed after that, however. In October 1230 Cardinal Otto
decided the dispute over the bishopric of Riga in favour of Nicholas, who pro-
ceeded to be consecrated in the spring of 1231, arriving in Riga that s­ ummer.
Disagreements had meanwhile emerged in Riga over the division and bap-
tism of Curonia, forcing Baldwin to flee to the monastery of Dünamünde.
Baldwin left the country and obtained a number of privileges from the pope
at the beginning of 1232. He was granted the powers of legation in Livonia,
Gothlandia, Vinlandia, Hestonia, Semigallia, Curlandia, et ceteris neophytorum
et paganorum provinciis et insulis circumpositis;8 he was allocated Curonia
and the bishopric of Semgallia during his lifetime, as well as the right to the
return of the areas which should have been under ecclesiastical control since
the time of William of Modena but which were in fact administered by the
Sword Brothers.
Baldwin returned to Livonia by 1233 at the latest, when he immediately
met with opposition. The Sword Brothers had occupied part of Curonia and
refused to return it. Baldwin set up his bases in Estonian territory in Wiek and

5  D D 1/6, no. 110.

6  Selart, “Balduin von Alna,” pp. 62–66.
7  On the events, see Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, pp. 159–162; Johansen, Estlandliste, pp. 702–
733; Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 269–301. Some aspects of these accounts are extremely
hypothetical.
8  L UB 1, no. 115; Epistolae saeculi XIII e regestis pontificum romanorum selectae per Georg H.
Pertz, ed. Carl Rodenberg, vol. 1 (Berlin, 1883) (MGH), no. 461; DD 1/6, no. 127.
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 131

Vironia. That summer he attempted to take possession of the castle of Reval in

the name of the pope, but the Sword Brothers refused to hand it over. In the
fighting that followed (August–September?), Baldwin’s men were defeated on
Reval’s fortified hill, today’s Toompea.9 The legate fled to Riga and excommu-
nicated the Sword Brothers, but this did not stop the Order from again seizing
power in northern Estonia.
Livonia was now politically divided into at least two camps. Baldwin’s oppo-
nents included the Sword Brothers, Bishop Nicholas of Riga, and the city of
Riga. He had support mainly from the family of Bishop Albert and from the
bishopric of Dorpat. His supporters also certainly included a section of Riga’s
cathedral chapter, the Cistercian monasteries of Dünamünde and Falkenau,
founded around this time, the vassals from Vironia, the Estonians and
Curonians, and possibly some individual Sword Brothers.10
Traditionally historians have argued that the aim of Baldwin’s legation was
to establish an ecclesiastical state in the Baltic.11 This view has been heavily crit-
icized by Manfred Hellmann.12 His argument must be fully endorsed, namely
the notion that there was a plan to set up a ecclesiastical state in northern
Europe must be regarded as fanciful speculation. It has been argued that the
curia needed a possession in Livonia to serve as a base for sending missions to
the pagans and the Russians. Baldwin was determined to use the opportunity
of eastward expansion to consolidate his own power and it was the pope who
was behind the idea of propagating Catholicism in Rus’.13 In Paul Johansen’s
view Rome may have learned precisely through the legations of William of

9  Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 287–301.

10  Johansen, Estlandliste, pp. 719–30. Cf. Max Perlbach, “Urkunden des Rigaschen Capitel-
Archives in der Fürstlich Czartoryskischen Bibliothek zu Krakau,” Mitt. Riga 13 (1886), 22;
Hermann Hildebrand, Livonica, vornähmlich aus dem 13. Jahrhundert, im Vaticanischen
Archiv (Riga, 1887), no. 21, para. 49; DD 1/6, no. 199, para. 49.
11  Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, pp. 108–13; Johansen, Estlandliste, pp. 110–111; Benninghoven,
Orden, pp. 279–87.
12  Hellmann, “Grundlagen,” p. 10; Hellmann, “Der Deutsche Orden im politischen Gefüge
Altlivlands,” p. 489; Manfred Hellmann, “Der Deutsche Orden und die Stadt Riga,” in Stadt
und Orden. Das Verhältnis des Deutschen Ordens zu den Städten in Livland, Preußen und im
Deutschen Reich, ed. Udo Arnold (Marburg, 1993) (Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des
Deutschen Ordens 44; Veröffentlichungen der Internationalen Historischen Kommission
zur Erforschung des Deutschen Ordens 4), p. 10; cf. Benninghoven, “Zur Rolle,” pp. 174–75.
See also Spence, “Pope Gregory,” p. 5.
13  Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, p. 218; Johansen, Estlandliste, pp. 110–11, 718, 723, 728; Jaakkola,
Suomen varhaiskeskiaika, pp. 255–57; Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси против крестоносной
агрессии, p. 152.
132 chapter 3

Modena and Baldwin of the opportunities in eastern Europe, its commercial

potential, and of the prospect of spreading Catholicism in Rus’ by exploiting its
internal conflicts and the threat posed by the Mongols.14
However, what one actually sees in Baldwin’s legation is the role of a papal
arbiter who simultaneously ruled as bishop of Semgallia15 and had no inten-
tion of expanding towards Russia.16 In the sources relating to Baldwin a num-
ber of episodes involving Rus’ are indeed mentioned. Among the papal letters
Baldwin obtained as backing at the beginning of 1232, there is one prohibit-
ing the Christians under the area covered by his legation from agreeing peace
or a truce “with the pagans and Russians of these lands” without the legate’s
approval or to conduct peace talks or levy taxes.17 The fact that the pagans are
mentioned first in this decretal suggests that its purpose was not to prepare an
expansion towards Rus’, but to protect the legate from any potential alliance
between a Livonian faction and foreign powers. The expression “pagans and
Russians” in this instance covers all of Livonia’s neighbours indiscriminately.
In the main source on Baldwin’s mission to Livonia, the papal summons
of 1234 calling Bishop Nicholas of Riga, some individual members of Sword
Brothers and the Order as a whole, and the city of Riga to a papal hearing,
the crimes committed by the accused against the church and the legate are
listed point by point. This document is based on the complaints communi-
cated by Baldwin and thus reflects his viewpoint. The Russians are mentioned
two or three times. The Sword Brothers are accused of not allowing the burial
of the ecclesiastical vassals who had been killed in the battle on Reval’s forti-
fied hill. This had profaned the church, with the result that “the newly bap-
tized and others” gradually approached to watch the scene with curiosity. This
was done so that “the neophytes, the Russians, and the pagans would see that
[the Order] excelled the church of Rome”.18 As regards papal policy towards
Rus’, this extract means nothing other than that there were neophytes whose

14  Johansen, Estlandliste, p. 723.

15  Mäesalu, “Päpstliche und kaiserliche Machtansprüche,” pp. 480–83.
16  Selart, “Balduin von Alna,” pp. 59–74.
17  HRM 1, no. 28; LUB 1, no. 121: “ne cum paganis terrarum illarum aut Rutenis, sive super pace
vel treuga tenenda, sive aliquo censu taxando tuae legationis tempore.”
18  DD 1/6, no. 199, para. 16; Hildebrand, Livonica, no. 21, para. 16: “et tam in cimiterio quam
in ecclesia super altare et corporale sanguinem effundentes; corpora in cumulum con-
gregantes. Unum de occisis qui ecclesie fuerat fidelior quasi domini pape vices tenen-
tem super acervum occisorum erexerunt et ad confusionem ecclesie maiorem minime
permiserunt quod traderentur sepulture; quousque processu temporis neophiti et alii ad
huiusmodi spectaculum videndum advenissent. Ut a neophitis, Rutenis et paganis eccle-
sia Romana maiores viderentur.”
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 133

faith was weak in Reval in 1233, as well as Russians and pagans to whom true
Christians would not have shown the degradation of the church of Rome.19
The Sword Brothers are also accused of:

invoking the heretical Russians and pagans from the surrounding region
against the bishop and the cathedral of Leal [i.e. the bishopric of
Dorpat]20 [and] against this bishop’s vassals and the newly baptized.
They laid siege to the castle of Dorpat, [while the Order] supplied the
Russians and pagans with craftsmen, arms, and money, [the Russians]
depopulated the vicinity, captured 450 neophytes and killed them, with-
out taking into account that the bishop of Leal [Dorpat] had been
entrusted with apostolic letters to come to the aid of the bishop of
Semgallia and the legate [Baldwin] to put an end to the viciousness of
these brothers of the Order.21

The summons adds that the Order had “completely destroyed the Cistercian
monastery of Falkenau with the help of the aforesaid Russians and pagans,
razing its buildings to the ground, following which most of the community
moved from Livonia to Germany”.22 In the accusations, not the Russians, but
the brothers of the Order who had risen against the church are described
as ­schismatic.23 Baldwin thus considered the Russians possible enemies of
Livonia,24 and an alliance with them was just as compromising for the Order
as working with the pagans. But just how should these accusations against the
Order be interpreted?25
The military campaign of Rus’ against the bishopric of Dorpat did indeed
take place in 1234, but the background to it goes back further. As previously
mentioned, Viacheslav, a follower of the Suzdal dynasty, had been removed
from the office of tysiatskii in Novgorod in 1228 to be replaced with Boris
Negochevich. Mikhail from Chernigov was appointed the new prince. When
he arrived, he promised to respect the city’s rights. In 1229 Mikhail returned to

19  Cf. Johansen, Estlandliste, p. 727; Erich Maschke, Der deutsche Orden und die Preußen.
Bekehrung und Unterwerfung in der preußisch-baltischen Mission des 13. Jahrhunderts
(Berlin, 1928) (Historische Studien 176), p. 28; Ligi, Talupoegade koormised, p. 18.
20  The bishopric of Dorpat was called Leal (Lealensis) until 1235. See LUR, no. 405; cf. nos
229, 232.
21  DD 1/6, no. 199, paras. 16, 25; Hildebrand, Livonica, no. 21, paras. 16, 25.
22  DD 1/6, no. 199, para. 28; Hildebrand, Livonica, no. 21, para. 28.
23  DD 1/6, no. 199, para. 38; Hildebrand, Livonica, no. 21, para. 38.
24  See also Krötzl, “Finnen,” p. 54.
25  Cf. Ammann, Kirchenpolitische Wandlungen, p. 190; Benninghoven, Orden, p. 300.
134 chapter 3

Chernigov, leaving his son Rostislav as his representative in Novgorod. The ten-
sion in the city continued, as did the famine, and in 1230, when Rostislav had
left for Torzhok, there was another turn of events in Novgorod. The houses of
the prince of Chernigov’s followers were burned down and they in turn were
either killed or forced to flee. Boris Negochevich and his companions fled to
Chernigov. Rostislav was also sent home to his father. Iaroslav was summoned
from Pereiaslav as the new prince, arriving in the city on the second last day
of 1230. He was actually represented in the city by his minor sons Fedor and
Aleksandr. The famine became even worse towards the spring and the related
unrest also increased. In 1231 the Novgorod Chronicle states that “God laid
bare to us sinners His bounty, swiftly showing His grace: the Germans hur-
ried from overseas with grain and flour and did much good”. In the autumn
Iaroslav and the Novgorodians attacked the Chernigov Land in an offensive
against Mikhail.26
In spring 1232 Boris Negochevich and his followers returned to Novgorod
together with Prince Sviatoslav of Trubchevsk (a castle in the region of
Chernigov). Sviatoslav claimed the throne of Novgorod but turned back half-
way, convinced of the hopelessness of the undertaking. When Boris and his fol-
lowers did not succeed in Novgorod, they made their way to Pskov, where they
took Viacheslav Gorislavich prisoner. He was evidently a supporter of Iaroslav
Vsevolodovich and may have been identical with the tysiatskii of Novgorod
mentioned in 1228 and whose presence in Pskov would have been on Iaroslav’s
orders.27 Boris could count on support in Pskov. There were also rebellions
against Iaroslav in Novgorod. However, when Iaroslav himself turned up, he
took the Pskovians who were in Novgorod prisoner and demanded from Pskov
the release of his man Viacheslav and the banishment of Boris and his follow-
ers. At the same time the families of Iaroslav’s opponents in Novgorod were
detained and their property confiscated. After a trade embargo imposed on
Pskov, Viacheslav was finally released by the one side and the wives of Boris
and his companions by the other, “but peace was not reached”. Pskov did not
surrender until the winter, when Iaroslav appointed his brother-in-law Iurii
prince; Boris and his companions, together with their families, who had been
banished from the city, found refuge in Livonia.28
In spring 1233 Boris and his followers together with Prince Iaroslav
Vladimirovich, the son of Vladimir of Pskov, and “the Germans” attacked
Izborsk. Pskov succeeded in winning back Izborsk in a counteroffensive, kill-
ing a German called Daniel in the process, and taking Iaroslav Vladimirovich

26  NL1, pp. 68–71, 275–80.

27  Ianin, Средневековый Новгород, p. 262.
28  NL1, pp. 71–72, 280–82. See also Nazarova, “Князь Ярослав Владимирович,” pp. 40–41.
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 135

­ risoner. He was handed over to Iaroslav Vsevolodovich, who sent the p

p ­ risoner
to Pereiaslav. Iaroslav Vladimirovich was thus one of the opponents of the house
of Suzdal in Pskov. This reference to his arrest and imprisonment is reason to
assume that his role in Pskov’s revolt against Iaroslav Vsevolodovich went back
several years. In the same year “the Germans” penetrated to Tesovo, where they
had captured a certain Kirill Sinkinich, bringing him to Odenpäh, where he
was held captive from mid-August 1233 until March 1234. Early in the spring
of that year Iaroslav Vsevolodovich reached Novgorod with his warriors from
Pereiaslav. He pushed through to Dorpat with his army and that of Novgorod.
He allowed his army to lay waste to the country around the castle, but faced
resistance from the Germans from Dorpat and Odenpäh. Iaroslav was victori-
ous in the battle and “a number of the best Germans” were also killed. Some of
the Germans drowned when the ice on the river Emajõgi cracked under them;
others were killed, others wounded, and others fled to Dorpat and Odenpäh.
Iaroslav devastated the surrounding country, but finally made peace at the
request of the Germans “on Iaroslav’s terms, with the Novgorodians all return-
ing safe and sound, although some of the men from the north-east of Rus’
had fallen.”29
This account30 can be directly connected with Baldwin’s complaint that the
Sword Brothers had called on the Russians to plunder Dorpat. Nonetheless,
the relations described between Novgorod, Pskov, and Dorpat explain Iaroslav
Vsevolodovich’s attack much better than any supposed invitation from the
Order. The attack took place in the early spring of 1234, before the ice melted.
The faction hostile to Baldwin at this point had already been successful in
securing the legate’s dismissal and replacement by William of Modena on
9 February 1234,31 appointed legate for a second time, but news of this had not
yet reached Livonia. Bishop Hermann of Dorpat himself would most likely not
have been in the country during the attack—in 1233 he was in Germany32—
but the bishopric still came to Baldwin’s aid and was opposed to the Sword
Brothers.33 The abbot referred to only by the initial ‘P’ of the Cistercian
­monastery of Falkenau, possibly founded in 1228,34 was staying near the

29  NL1, pp. 72–73, 282–83.

30  See Ianin, Новгородские посадники, pp. 195–203; Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, pp. 107–08;
Dimnik, Mikhail, pp. 45–48; Ianin, Новгород и Литва, p. 51.
31  Hildebrand, Livonica, nos 18–19; DD 1/6, no. 172.
32  Friedrich G. von Bunge, Livland, die Wiege der Deutschen Weihbischöfe (Leipzig, 1875)
(Baltische Geschichtsstudien 1), pp. 31–32; Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 288–89.
33  Eduard Winkelmann, “Livländische Forschungen,” Mitt. Riga 11 (1868), 316–21; Benning-
hoven, Orden, p. 289; Tiina Kala, “Über das Schicksal des Bistums Ösel-Wiek,” in Saare-
Lääne piiskopkond. Bistum Ösel-Wiek, ed. Ülla Paras (Haapsalu, 2004), pp. 182–86.
34  Benninghoven, Orden, p. 288.
136 chapter 3

Cistercian Baldwin.35 The Russian chronicles do not mention either the siege
of Falkenau or its destruction, but do report the destructive advance reaching
the area surrounding Dorpat. Baldwin’s complaints can thus be placed in the
context of events taking place in Livonia without difficulty. While on the one
hand the bishopric of Dorpat assisted the opponents of Iaroslav Vsevolodovich,
the prince in turn may have supported the Order. There is no reason to rule out
contacts and concerted action between the Order and Iaroslav Vsevolodovich.
The bishopric of Dorpat and Pskov were dependent on one another in
the periods when those who held power in Pskov were disposed against the
Suzdal dynasty or the local group that supported it. Their principal problem
was the conflicts with their more powerful neighbours, the Sword Brothers,
and the princes of Suzdal, and Novgorod, which was occasionally controlled
by the princes of Suzdal. The central figure unifying the policies of Dorpat and
Pskov was, in the 1230s and 1240s, Prince Iaroslav Vladimirovich, who sought
to enforce his claim to Pskov. He must have been born c. 1200, for in 1218 he
already appears leading the army.36 In 1225 and 1226 he fought together with his
father Vladimir of Pskov and Iaroslav Vsevolodovich against the Lithuanians at
Torzhok.37 He spent some years as a youth at the house of Bishop Albert in Riga
with the result that he must have been familiar with the Catholic rite, although
this does not of course allow us to infer that he was predisposed towards
Catholicism or had a German wife, as has sometimes been argued.38 It is known
that he was married twice and that his second wife was murdered by her step-
son in Odenpäh sometime before 1243,39 but it is not known who his wives
were. It cannot of course be ruled out that he was married to a Livonian, but
there are no sources to indicate this apart from a very late ­tradition.40 Iaroslav’s
relations with both Livonia and Rus’ demonstrate once again that one should
not ascribe too much importance to the religious frontier in Livonia in the
13th century.
Iaroslav Vladimirovich may have been freed from his imprisonment in
Pereiaslav (since being captured in Izborsk) as early as 1235 if his ransom had

35  LUB 1, no. 135; LVA, no. 200.

36  HCL XXII.4, p. 151. See also Nazarova, “Князь Ярослав Владимирович,” p. 40. On the fig-
ure of Iaroslav, see also Andrei V. Kuzmin, “Торопецкая знать в ХIII веке. Из истории
Смоленской земли,” Russia mediaevalis 10 (2001), 68–72.
37  NL1, pp. 64, 269.
38  Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, p. 110.
39  NL1, pp. 79, 297.
40  Anti Selart, “Otepää, Pihkva ja püha Jevpraksija,” in Andresen, Muinasaja loojangust
omariikluse läveni, pp. 107–22.
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 137

been paid by his followers in Livonia.41 In the material referred to above on

the relations between Dorpat and Pskov, one of the key fortresses mentioned
was Odenpäh. The first four vassals of Bishop Hermann in Odenpäh were
his brother Theodoric, also Vladimir Mstislavich’s son-in-law, his brother-in-
law Engelbert von Tiesenhausen, Helmold von Lüneburg, and Johannes von
Dolen.42 Odenpäh43 itself was therefore also tied to the lineage of Iaroslav
Vladimirovich through the marriage between his sister and Theodoric, so that
it is hardly surprising that Iaroslav himself and his followers were mainly based
there and which would explain the importance placed on Odenpäh’s role in
the Novgorod Chronicle.
It is not known whether Iaroslav Vladimirovich ever actually reigned in
Pskov, although he relentlessly pursued power there; if he did, then perhaps
before Pskov’s capitulation in the face of Iaroslav Vsevolodovich in the winter
of 1232–33.44 Although Pskov was ultimately subject to the Suzdal dynasty—in
the 1230s and 1240s the position of the north-eastern Russian dynasty became
consolidated throughout Rus’—he cannot be regarded as a hopeless claimant
to the throne.
The relations of the factions in Novgorod and Pskov to Livonia are usually
explained with reference to commercial interests.45 This fact is either wel-
comed as a positive attitude of openness towards the West or condemned as
profit-driven greed, depending on the scholar. It may certainly be taken for
granted that trade was essential, to a greater or lesser extent, to all the elites
in these cities. The different urban groups relied on political and military sup-
port. Which faction assisted Livonia in the end and which the house of the
Vsevolodovich might even be a matter of chance. It would be simplistic and
anachronistic to refer to a ‘Western’ or ‘Eastern’ orientation. The military cam-
paign of 1233 against Izborsk, which was linked to the political struggle in
Novgorod and Pskov, belongs more to the history of Rus’ than that of Livonia.
Only the see of Dorpat, not the whole of Livonia, was directly affected by
Iaroslav Vsevolodovich’s attack of 1234. The peace of 1234, which was based
on that of 1224, does not appear to have touched on any territorial issues. It
was apparently thanks to this peace treaty that Kirill Sinkinich, who had been

41  NL1, pp. 74, 285; Nazarova, “Князь Ярослав Владимирович,” p. 42.
42  HCL XXVIII.8, p. 206.
43  Mäesalu, “Burg Otepää,” p. 147; Tvauri, Muinas-Tartu, pp. 250–54.
44  Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, p. 110. Evgeniia Nazarova (“Князь Ярослав Владимирович,”
pp. 40–41) estimates that Iaroslav may have ruled in Pskov c. 1228 or immediately there­
after, probably until c. 1231.
45  E.g. Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, p. 112.
138 chapter 3

taken hostage, was released.46 Other terms of the peace would have touched
on the question of the support given to the opposition in Pskov and Novgorod
against Iaroslav Vsevolodovich. Iaroslav’s options were themselves limited. The
famine continued in Rus’, just as in Livonia, making calling up and supplying a
large army extremely difficult.47
There are therefore no grounds for linking Baldwin’s mission with plans to
convert Rus’ to Catholicism. In his complaints against the Sword Brothers he
cited the compromising argument that the Order had collaborated with pagans
and heretics, insofar as it had incited them against the cathedral of Dorpat and
the monastery of Falkenau. After the fighting on Reval’s fortified hill in 1233,
Baldwin had fled to Riga, where he proceeded to excommunicate a number
of Sword Brothers and deposed several clerics who were sympathetic to the
Order. These measures failed to have the desired effect, however. The Order
took reprisals against Baldwin’s supporters and seized the possessions of the
monastery of Dünamünde in northern Estonia.48 As a possible response to this,
King Valdemar II and Count Albert of Holstein blocked the port of Lübeck.49
To recover Estonia Denmark had brought a case against the Order before the
pope. The Order in turn sought support from Count Albert of Saxony (d. 1261).50
Baldwin, who had left Livonia by this time (1234), brought complaints against
the Order and his other opponents.51 The pope’s judgement, not issued until
February 1236, was finally unfavourable to the Order and Bishop Nicholas of
Riga. In April it was resolved that the castle of Reval with all the lands belong-
ing to it should be returned to the Danish king.52 The papal legate William of
Modena had also arrived in Livonia no later than August 1234.53
At the same time, the Sword Brothers, and later the Teutonic Order, and
the princes of north-east Rus’ continued to collaborate. In 1235 Prince Iaroslav

46  Carl von Stern, “Dorpat-Pleskauer Kämpfe um die Peipusfischerei 1224–1371,” Quellen und
Forschungen zur baltischen Geschichte 5 (1944), 88; Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 372–73.
47  See NL1, pp. 73, 283; Annales Stadenses, p. 361.
48  See Johansen, Estlandliste, pp. 728–30; Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 298–99.
49  Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, p. 165; Benninghoven, Orden, p. 314. On the significance of
Lübeck in Livonian history, see Antjekathrin Grassmann, “Lübeck und der Deutsche
Orden. Möglichkeiten zu neuen Forschungen,” in Nowak, Werkstatt des Historikers,
pp. 33–47. See also Albrici Chronica, p. 930; cf. pp. 916, 946.
50  Johansen, Estlandliste, pp. 712–13.
51  Hildebrand, Livonica, no. 20.
52  LUB 1, nos 145–47, 152; DD 1/6, nos 212, 213, 215–17, 221; LVA, no. 207; Donner, Kardinal
Wilhelm, pp. 159–62, 183–85; Johansen, Estlandliste, p. 729; Benninghoven, Orden,
pp. 324–27.
53  Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, pp. 163–66.
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 139

Vsevolodovich left Novgorod for Kiev, leaving his 15- or 16-year-old son
Aleksandr behind in Novgorod. Then the Novgorod Chronicle narrates under
the year 1237:

The same year the Germans came in great strength from beyond the sea
to Riga and all united there; both the men of Riga and all the Chud Land,
and the men of Pskov from themselves sent a help of 200 men, and they
went against the godless Lithuanians; and thus for our sins they were
defeated by the godless pagans, and each tenth man came back to
his home.54

It is in this way that the Battle of Saule of 1236 is described in the Novgorod
Chronicle.
According to the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, the master of the Sword
Brothers, Volkwin, had sent messengers to Rus’ asking for help after the arrival
of the crusaders, who wanted to fight the pagans. This help was indeed pro-
vided, and the Estonians, Letts, and Livs also joined the offensive against the
pagans. The crusader army set off for Lithuania on a raid, but while returning fell
victim to an attack by Samogitians and Semgallians at Saule on 22 September.
Master Volkwin and 48 brothers were killed, in other words approximately half
of the Sword Brothers.55 As regards the location of the battle, most historians
agree in identifying Saule with modern Šiauliai in northern Lithuania.56
In our context it is crucial to analyse the role of the support army from
Pskov in this battle. Lithuania, which was in the process of consolidation—it
was just about at this time that Mindaugas took power in Lithuania—repre-
sented a dangerous and increasingly powerful opponent to the states not only
of Livonia but also of Pskov and Novgorod. This explains the shared interest of
the Order and Pskov in fighting against Lithuania. Livonia, Rus’, and the cru-
saders thus formed a Christian coalition against the Lithuanian pagans. It was
a political, not religious alliance, however. The Nikon Chronicle, compiled in
the 16th century, relates that a small group of Novgorodians also took part in
the battle. However, it is not clear where this information comes from; it is
not found in the sources more contemporary with the battle.57 The arrival of a

54  NL1, pp. 74, 285; Лаврентьевская летопись, p. 514.

55  LR, lines 1881–1958. The number of those killed ranges from 48 to 61 in the sources. See
Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 347–48.
56  Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 331–39.
57  Летописный сборник, именуемый Патриаршей или Никоновской летописью
(продолжение), ed. Boris M. Kloss et al. (Moscow, 2000) (PSRL 10), p. 105: “ести же
140 chapter 3

large crusading army in Riga was a noteworthy occurrence,58 also raising hopes
in Rus’ that the attacks of the pagans could be resisted. Moreover, at the time
both Novgorod and Pskov were politically subordinate to the Suzdal dynasty in
the form of Aleksandr Iaroslavich.
Baldwin of Aulne had already accused the Order and Iaroslav Vsevolodovich
of working together. The Novgorod Land had been devastated by Lithuania
in 1234 following Iaroslav’s Dorpat campaign. The Battle of Saule cannot be
linked either to the papacy’s missionary policy or the influence of the Catholic
church or, conversely, the dwindling influence of Rus’.59 Livonia’s expansion
policy at the time was very clearly towards the south; a large, still unconquered
area in north-east Lithuania, on the border with Polotsk, was earmarked for
the diocese of the bishop of Semgallia in 1237.60
After the Battle of Saule, the Lithuanians were able to resume their military
activities. In the opinion of Friedrich Benninghoven, ‘Catholic’ Livonia lost a
large part of its territory south of the Daugava in 1236 and 1237.61 The Sword
Brothers did not recover from this blow. After the defeat, the talks over an alli-
ance between the Sword Brothers and the Teutonic Order, which had been
dragging on for some time, were brought to a swift conclusion. In the spring of
1237 news of the defeat at Saule reached the negotiating parties in Germany.
This weakened the position of the Sword Brothers so dramatically that they
agreed to incorporation without conditions and were forced to return north-
ern Estonia to the Danish king. On 12 May 1237 the merger of the two orders
was confirmed by the pope and announced in June by the grand master of the
Teutonic Order, Hermann von Salza.62

некая часть и отъ Новгородцевъ”. See Artūras Dubonis, “Du šimtai pskoviečių Saulės
mūšyje (1236) (dėl Naugardo i metraščio žinutės),” Lituanistica 1990, 1, 18–19, 23–24. Cf.
Vladimir A. Kuchkin, “Александр Невский—государственный деятель и полководец
средневековой Руси,” in Отечественная история 1996, 5, 22–23.
58  Annales Stadenses p. 363; LUB 1, no. 149.
59  According to Benninghoven, Orden, p. 347.
60  LUB 1, no. 153; LVA, no. 219; Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, pp. 202–04; Benninghoven,
Orden, p. 363; Edvardas Gudavichius, “‘Литва Миндовга’,” in Проблемы этногенеза
и этнической истории балтов, ed. Regina Volkajte-Kulikauskene (Vilnius, 1985),
pp. 223–24.
61  Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 349–52.
62  On these events and for a bibliography, see Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 321–53; Manfred
Hellmann, “Die Stellung des livländischen Ordenszweiges zur Gesamtpolitik des
deutschen Ordens vom 13. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert,” in Von Akkon bis Wien. Studien zur
Deutschordensgeschichte vom 13. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert. Festschrift zum 90. Geburtstag
von Althochmeister P. Dr. Marian Tumler O.T. am 21. Oktober 1977, ed. Udo Arnold
(Marburg, 1978) (Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des Deutschen Ordens 20), pp. 7–8;
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 141

Vladimir Kuchkin argues that the Sword Brothers also asked Novgorod for
help after the defeat at Saule, but without success because Novgorod was tied
up in wars in Finland.63 The vita of Prince Aleksandr Iaroslavich narrates how a
dignitary, Andreas (Андреяш), came from a western land from the community
of those called the “servants of God” (slugy bozhiia, слугы божия) to admire the
beauty and intelligence of Aleksandr.64 According to Kuchkin, this Андреяш
was Andreas von Felben, the subsequent provincial master of the Teutonic
Order in Livonia (1241, 1248–53). Friedrich Benninghoven suggests that he may
have been a former Sword Brother.65 However, the vita of Aleksandr, compiled
in Vladimir in north-eastern Russia several decades afterwards (the original
version possibly in the 1260s) and whose contents were not ordered in the
exact factual and chronological sequence, cannot be considered reliable in this
respect. We should not assume that the only possibility for diplomatic con-
tact between the Sword Brothers or the Teutonic Order and Novgorod between
1236 (Aleksandr’s independent assumption of power in Novgorod) and 1240
(the account in the vita is immediately before the Battle of the Neva) was con-
nected to the Battle of Saule, never mind take for granted that the messenger
Андреяш is to be identified with Andreas von Felben. The episode in the vita,
whose purpose is, according to the conventions of the genre, to demonstrate
Aleksandr’s bravery, beauty, and fame, cannot be identified with a specific time
or event.66 Political contacts between neighbouring countries had presumably
taken place both before and after the Battle of Saule.
The high degree of political tension in Livonia, Novgorod, and Pskov in the
1230s resulted in the formation of two groups of allies both of which included
Catholic and Orthodox participants. The argument of being allied with schis-
matics was used in the polemics of the time, but was addressed to an ‘outside’
audience with the objective of discrediting rivals. At the same time the Pskov
Russians participated in the 1236 crusade against pagan Lithuanians.

Klaus Militzer, Von Akkon zur Marienburg. Verfassung, Verwaltung und Sozialstruktur des
Deutschen Ordens 1190–1309 (Marburg, 1999) (Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des
Deutschen Ordens 56; Veröffentlichungen der Internationalen historischen Kommission
zur Erforschung des Deutschen Ordens 9), pp. 362–74.
63  Kuchkin, “Александр Невский,” pp. 22–23.
64  Begunov, Памятник, pp. 161, 187–88.
65  Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 444–45. For variations on the hypothesis that Felben visited
Novgorod, see Hellmann, “Stellung,” pp. 8–9; Benninghoven, Orden, p. 375; Evgeniia L.
Nazarova, “Крестовый поход на Русь 1240 г. (организация и планы),” in Восточная
Европа в исторической ретроспективе. К 80-летию Владимира Т. Пашуто, ed.
Tatiana N. Dzhakson and Elena A. Melnikova (Moscow, 1999), pp. 195–96.
66  See also Lur’e, Россия, pp. 127–28; Valerov, Новгород, p. 167.
142 chapter 3

3.3 The Treaty of Stensby of 1238 and the Military Campaigns against
Rus’ of 1240–42

In contrast to Baldwin of Aulne, William of Modena, who had by now arrived

in Livonia (1234), acted in concert with the military orders. He mediated in
strained relationships, appointed the Dominican Henry as bishop of Ösel, and
used the new bishop Engelbert for the bishopric of Curonia. When William
revived the bishopric of Ösel, which had become vacant after 1228 due to the
political instability, he met with the opposition of the local vassals, who refused
to relinquish their estates. The opposition was led by the brothers Odward and
Heinrich von Lode, who could only be defeated by the might of the Order. In
1238 William thus announced an alliance between the Teutonic Order and the
bishop of Ösel.67 The bishopric of Leal was renamed Dorpat after the actual
location of the cathedral. The following year the former bishop of Modena left
for Prussia. Meanwhile the Danish king proceeded with his case at the curia to
regain Estonia. An agreement was finally reached on 7 June 1238 in the form
of a treaty signed in Stensby, on the Danish island of Zealand, between the
Teutonic Order and the Danish king for the return of northern Estonia to the
Danish monarch.68 The Teutonic Order, the new territorial lord in Livonia
following the merger with the Sword Brothers, had to relinquish Harria and
Vironia. The Danish king could implement his claims only in part, however. He
had to relinquish Jerwia, but continued the proceedings before the curia, laying
claim to Wiek and the small lands of central Estonia (Alempois, Nurmekund,
Mocha, and Waiga).
The terms of the Treaty of Stensby69 provided for the return of Revala, Jerwia,
Harria, and Vironia to the Danish king. Jerwia was simultaneously transferred
by the king to the Teutonic Order on condition that it did not build any castles
there without his consent and that the land remained in the diocese of the
bishop of Estonia (i.e. of Reval). The king also promised not to attack Ösel and
Wiek. The Order undertook not to invade either the returned territories or the
lands confiscated from the pagans and to be transferred to the Danish king.
The pagans’ land to be conquered jointly in the future (de terris acquirendis a
paganis communibus expensis regis et fratrum) would be split between them,
with two thirds for the king and only one third for the Order.

67  Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, pp. 169–70, 207–13; Nicolaus Busch, Nachgelassene Schriften,
ed. Leonid Arbusow (Riga, 1934), p. 20; Johansen, Estlandliste, p. 716.
68  Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, pp. 215–16; Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 362–69.
69  DD 1/7, no. 9; LUB 1, no. 170.
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 143

Many aspects of how the actual handover of northern Estonia took place
remain unclear. William of Modena issued a decree excommunicating all vio-
lators of the peace in the territory under his legation.70 This would seem to sug-
gest that the proceedings did not go particularly smoothly. The former Sword
Brothers presumably resisted the handover, with the result that the provincial
master of the Teutonic Order, Hermann Balk, had to leave the country because
of the rebellion of his new confreres. He died in the spring of 1240 in Germany.
The vassals of Harria and Vironia, among them the former vassals of the Sword
Brothers, would also have put up resistance. This opposition, which was det-
rimental to the interests of the Teutonic Order, was nevertheless subdued and
thus in the summer of 1238 a sufficiently large Danish military force was to be
stationed in Reval.71 The English chronicler Matthew Paris (d. 1259), who was
not very accurately informed about the Baltic, relates in his Chronica maiora
under the year 1240 that at that time (illo tempore) there was a false rumour
according to which the Danes planned to attack England. In fact, they had only
loaded ships with both men and women to repopulate the lands devastated by
the ‘Tatars’.72 This may be an echo of the Danish takeover of Vironia and Harria
in 1238–39, which in England was associated with the main event in eastern
Europe at the time, the Mongol invasion of 1240–41.
The treaty between Denmark and the Teutonic Order was therefore very
much a compromise. The return of territory to the king of Denmark was not
so much an achievement of Gregory IX or William of Modena, but is rather
attributable to the exceptional point in time during which there was a power
vacuum while the military order in Livonia recomposed itself. Part of the com-
pensation promised to the king in return for ceding Jerwia was two thirds of the
lands that he, together with the Teutonic Order, conquered from the pagans in
the future. The treaty itself mentions pagans. Many scholars have nevertheless
read into it plans either for an aggression or a preventive attack on Rus’, tak-
ing the view that behind the treaty was a papal policy of uniting the Catholic
forces in the region in preparation for a military campaign against Rus’ to
bring it under Roman authority. In 1240, as is well known, three conflicts with
Rus’ in the Baltic are documented in the sources: the Neva campaign, which
was repelled by Prince Aleksandr Iaroslavich; the conquests in Votia; and the

70  Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, pp. 428–29, no. 11.

71  Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, pp. 211, 230; Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 368–369; Militzer, Von
Akkon zur Marienburg, pp. 365–66. On the Danish administration in Estonia, see Thomas
Riis, Les institutions politiques centrales du Danemark 1100–1332 (Odense, 1977) (OUS 46),
pp. 323–36.
72  Matthaei Chronica, vol. 4, p. 9.
144 chapter 3

o­ ccupation of Pskov (Battle of the Ice). A highly influential historiographical

tradition sees these campaigns as a coordinated attack aimed at conquering
Rus’ and/or converting it to Catholicism.
The origins of this view lie in the veneration as a saint of the prince of
Novgorod at the time, Aleksandr Iaroslavich.73 Aleksandr ‘Nevskii’—the saint
was first given this sobriquet in the literary tradition of the 15th century—was
the progenitor of the grand princes and tsars of Moscow. This explains why the
dynastic local cult that grew up around him from the end of the 13th century
in Vladimir later spread to the whole of Russia. Aleksandr’s veneration as the
progenitor of the ruling dynasty merged simultaneously with the local tradi-
tion of Novgorod and Pskov, which represented Aleksandr as a courageous
commander who fought against Livonia and Sweden—opponents that Pskov
and Novgorod also had to fight against in the 14th and 15th centuries. During
Aleksandr’s lifetime these cities were often opposed to him but he always
succeeded in suppressing the opposition. Particularly in the Russian sources
of the 16th century an image of a hero was created in line with the political
requirements of the time.
To examine the validity of the view that these three campaigns were a coor-
dinated attack we must establish what their aims were and whether or not they
were indeed coordinated. Coordination in this sense should be understood as
an agreement about the timing and location of the military campaigns, not
simply the exploitation of a propitious opportunity.
The historiographical tradition linking the three campaigns together is
based on their proximity in time and especially Aleksandr Iaroslavich’s partici-
pation in all three of them. The very treatment of Livonia and Rus’ as coherent
entities is what makes possible the notion of an attack by the ‘West’ against
Rus’ in the first place. The most comprehensive exposition of the theory of con-
certed action and the plan to conquer Rus’ has been elaborated by the Finnish
historians Jalmari Jaakkola and Gustav Adolf Donner. The entire period from
the 1230s to approximately 1270 represented, according to Jaakkola, a “crisis” in
the relations between Rus’ and Europe in which Finland and Bishop Thomas
of Finland (resigned 1245, d. 1248) played key roles.74 Donner proceeded on
the premise that even Innocent III may already have sought to use Livonia

73  For a biography of Aleksandr, see Fennell, Crisis; Kuchkin, “Александр Невский”.
74  Jalmari Jaakkola, Kuningas Maunu Eerikinpojan unionipolitiikasta ynnä sen aikusista
Pohjoismais-Saksalais-Balttilais-Venäläisistä suhteista vuotteen 1348 ja Itämaan synny-
stä (Helsinki, 1928) (Historiallisia Tutkimuksia 10), p. 23. For an overview, see John Lind,
“Bishop Thomas in Recent Historiography—Views and Sources,” in Suomen varhaiskeski-
aika, ed. Kyösti Julku (Rovaniemi, 1992) (Studia historica septentrionalia 21), pp. 304–16;
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 145

as a base from which to achieve the submission of the Russian church. The
papacy’s plans against Rus’ had assumed solid form in the Treaty of Stensby,
which laid the groundwork for a joint military venture. The ‘crusades’ of 1240
from Finland and Livonia had been specifically planned to take advantage
of the propitious moment in which Rus’ had been weakened by the Mongol
invasion. The church’s leading role in the plans to subjugate Rus’ and force it
to accept Catholicism was also testified to by the participation of bishops in
the campaigns on the Neva and against Pskov. The aim of the Neva campaign
had been to block a transport artery of vital importance to Novgorod, while
the attacks on Votia and Pskov were intended finally to lead to the conquest
of Novgorod. Since such thorough preparations took a considerable amount
of time, it had not been possible to realize the plan agreed in Stensby until
1240. Collaboration was also indicated by the fact that the Livonian military
campaigns had already been prepared even before the Battle of the Neva and
because they took place in late summer, which was an unusual time of year
for warfare. The fact that the Danes took part in the campaign against Pskov
was another sign of a coordinated undertaking. A further argument was that
William of Modena served as legate in Sweden, Denmark, and Livonia.75
Donner’s arguments, which have not been significantly expanded upon,
have been adopted by various scholars, sometimes with a slightly different
emphasis or analysis. The influence of the destructive advance of the Mongols
on the timing of the campaigns has been differently assessed.76 The Mongols’
westward advance began in 1235 and reached Rus’ in 1237. Led by Batu Khan
(d. 1255), they occupied Ryazan and Vladimir. Grand Prince Iurii Vsevolodovich
fell in the Battle of the Sit River on 4 March, in which the army of the princi-
pality of Vladimir was defeated. Batu advanced towards Novgorod, but turned
back when about one hundred kilometres away. He invaded Rus’ again in 1239,
this time towards the south. In the autumn of 1240 the Mongols captured Kiev,
pushing further forward towards Poland and Hungary. Between 1240 and 1242,
however, Novgorod, Pskov, Polotsk, and Smolensk were not directly affected
by the Mongol conquest. It is true that Novgorod later had to pay tribute, but
in this period there was only an indirect economic effect on it and Pskov.

also John H. Lind, “The Order of the Sword-Brothers and Finland. Sources and Traditions,”
in Nowak and Czaja, Vergangenheit und Gegenwart der Ritterorden, pp. 159–64.
75  Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, pp. 217–33. Cf. Benninghoven, Orden, p. 368.
76  Igor Šaskolski, “Venäjän ja Itämeren kysymys 1100–1400-luvulla,” Historiallinen Arkisto
66 (1973), 17–18; Vernadsky, Mongols, pp. 53–55; Stasiewski, “Missionsbestrebungen,”
pp. 30–32; cf. Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси против крестоносной агрессии, p. 154; Pashuto,
Внешняя политика, pp. 290–94.
146 chapter 3

Therefore the military strength of these centres was probably not greatly ham-
pered at the time. The claim that the Catholic side had weighed up the pos-
sibility that Novgorod might not be able to call on assistance from the east
against the attackers77 amounts to an exaggeration of the scale of the warfare
taking place on the western frontier of the Novgorod Land.
Just as thoroughly as Donner, the subject has been investigated from the
Russian perspective by Igor Shaskolskii. He reiterates the views of Donner and
Jaakkola by stressing the leading and coordinating role of the pope rather than
William of Modena or Bishop Thomas of Finland. He argues that the Treaty
of Stensby did not yet set out the details of the campaigns, but was merely
an agreement in principle. The aim had been the conquest of Novgorod and
its conversion to Catholicism.78 Friedrich Benninghoven maintains that the
church of Rome, the early Hanseatic merchants, the politically linked groups
of Pskov and Dorpat, the Estonians, and the Baltic Finns of Votia, whose inter-
ests coincided in some respects, took part in the campaigns.79 Critics of this
cooperation theory have remained in the minority.80
As can be seen, there are only indirect arguments in favour of treating the
three campaigns as a single interrelated war. The Treaty of Stensby foresaw the
Teutonic Order and the Danish fighting together against the pagans. Rus’ is not
mentioned on one single occasion in the text. Of course, we do not know what
verbal agreements the powers might have reached in addition. However, the
Treaty of Stensby certainly cannot be cited as evidence of plans to subjugate
Rus’ under the ecclesiastical authority of the popes. None of the known papal
letters relating to Livonia or Finland c. 1240 mentions schismatics or Russians.
They only refer to the dangerous pagans and the mission, meaning the conver-
sion of the pagans to Catholicism.81

77  Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси против крестоносной агрессии, p. 154.

78  Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси против крестоносной агрессии, pp. 147–59.
79  Benninghoven, Orden, p. 369.
80  Paul von der Osten-Sacken, “Der erste Kampf des Deutschen Ordens gegen die Russen,”
Mitt. Riga 20 (1910), 93–94, 102–03; Albert M. Ammann, “Gedanken zu einigen neueren
Veröffentlichungen aus der frührussischen Kirchengeschichte,” Ostkirchliche Studien 9
(1960), 110–11; Fennell, Crisis, p. 104; Hösch, “Ostpolitik,” pp. 99–100; Kuchkin, “Борьба,”
pp. 134–35; Nazarova, “Крестовый поход,” pp. 195–97; Evgeniya L. Nazarova, “The
Crusades against Votians and Izhorians in the Thirteenth Century,” in Murray, Crusade
and Conversion, pp. 183–84. Cf. for compromise versions, see Ammann, Kirchenpolitische
Wandlungen, p. 217; Christiansen, Northern Crusades, p. 128; John H. Lind, “Early Russian-
Swedish Rivalry. The Battle on the Neva in 1240 and Birger Magnussons’ Second Crusade
to Tavastia,” Scandinavian Journal of History 16 (1991), 270.
81  Hellmann, “Begegnungen,” p. 133.
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 147

The participation of Catholic bishops in military campaigns was the norm

rather than the exception in the 13th century. Their participation in these
instances does not offer any proof whatsoever of the direct interest of the curia
or the pope or that they were directing events. The contention made by Donner
and his followers that conducting the campaigns in the summer showed the
unusual nature of the events is also unjustified. The naval campaign on the
Neva in July was connected to the navigation season; the c­ ampaign against
Pskov took place in September, slightly later in other words; and in Livonia the
second half of the summer was in fact the usual period for military c­ ampaigns.82
As regards the area covered by William of Modena’s legation, it was completely
normal for a legate’s powers to stretch across an extended area, in his case
across the entire Baltic region east of Denmark.
On the basis of the sources, therefore, at the most we can speculate that
the different autonomous powers acting independently from one another
were able to take advantage of a propitious moment in time.83 Erroneous con-
clusions have resulted from the earlier view in which 13th-century Pskov was
regarded as a direct subordinate town of Novgorod. The collapse in the power
of the Suzdal princes in Pskov was probably not unwelcome to the burghers of
Novgorod. In 1241 Aleksandr Iaroslavich himself left Novgorod due to internal
conflicts.
Scholars who argue that the pope was behind the actions, whether directly
or indirectly, are thus able to adduce only insufficient evidence. For these
claims to be valid one must first examine whether the curia took any steps at
all against Rus’ c. 1240. General conclusions about the causes and aims of the
three campaigns cannot be drawn until the three events have been looked at
separately.

3.3.1 The Battle of the Neva in 1240

Three independent written sources can be drawn upon for the Battle of the
Neva: the early recension of the First Novgorod Chronicle, the vita of Aleksandr
Iaroslavich, and the so-called ‘Testament of Magnus’ (Рукописание Магнуша).
The latter was a fictitious testament drawn up in Novgorod in the 15th cen-
tury under the name of the Swedish king, Magnus Eriksson (1319–63). It in turn
influenced the description of the battle in the late chronicles.

82  Friedrich Benninghoven, “Zur Technik spätmittelalterlicher Feldzüge im Ostbaltikum,”

ZfO 19 (1970), 635; Nazarova, “Крестовый поход,” pp. 196–97.
83  See Osten-Sacken, “Der erste Kampf,” pp. 93–94, 102–03; Kuchkin, “Борьба,” pp. 134–35;
Nazarova, “Крестовый поход,” p. 201.
148 chapter 3

The Novgorod Chronicle narrates under the year 1240 that a large fleet of
Swedes, Norwegians, Finns from Finland Proper, and Tavastians landed on the
Neva at the point where the Izhora River flows into it (Свеи  . . . и Мурмане,
и Сумь, и Емь). The Swedes had their princes and bishops with them, “wish-
ing to take possession of Ladoga, or in one word, of Novgorod, and of the
whole Novgorod Land”. When news of the landing reached Novgorod, Prince
Aleksandr went with the Novgorodians and warriors from Ladoga against them
and defeated them on 15 July. The commander of the Swedish army, Spiridon
(Спиридон), and others, including, according to some claims, a bishop, were
killed (а инии творяху, яко и пискупъ убьенъ бысть). The enemy left in the
middle of the night. Four men from Novgorod are listed as killed and it is added
that, of the Novgorodians and the warriors from Ladoga, twenty men or fewer
had been killed.84
According to the account in the vita of Aleksandr, the idea occurred to the
“king of the Roman land” (король части Римскыя), who had heard of the vir-
tues of the holy prince, of seizing Aleksandr’s land. He gathered a great army
and came to the Neva, from where he sent messengers to Novgorod to the
prince: “If you are able, wage war against me, I am here already and shall con-
quer your land”.85 Aleksandr first prayed in Novgorod’s St Sophia Cathedral86
then hurried with a small army—he could neither call on his father for help
nor were all Novgorodians able to join him—against the superior enemy. The
elder of the Ingrians, the baptized Pelgui (Пелгуй, Пелугии, Пелгусий), had a
vision before the battle in which the martyrs Boris and Gleb promised to help
Aleksandr. A great battle “with the Romans” took place on 15 July in which
Aleksandr wounded their king in the face. Many enemies were also killed by
an angel of God.87 The enemies fled on their ships, taking their fallen with
them, who were then lowered into the sea. Aleksandr returned victorious. A
number of Aleksandr’s retinue are also mentioned (such as Novgorodians and
Polotskians) as taking part in the battle.88

84  NL1, p. 77. On the Russian sources, cf. Danilevskii, Русские земли, pp. 184–86.
85  Cf. 2 Kings 19:9.
86  Cf. 2 Kings 19:14–20; Ps 35:1–2.
87  Cf. 2 Kings 19:35–37. The intention behind the reference to book two of Kings might have
been to identify the Swedes with the king of Assyria and Aleksandr with King Hezekiah of
Judah. See also Danilevskii, Русские земли, pp. 192–94.
88  Begunov, Памятник, pp. 162–68; 188–90. Against the rational reinterpretation of the
miracles recounted in the medieval texts (for example, Danilevskii, Русские земли,
pp. 187–88), see Lur’e, Россия, p. 127.
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 149

The ‘Testament of Magnus’ has King Magnus of Sweden bluntly warn his
children, brothers, and the Swedish people against attacking Rus’ while the
peace treaty is in force. His warning includes a list of Sweden’s historic defeats,
one of these being the Battle of the Neva in 1240: “The first to rise was Prince
Berger (Бергерь, Бельгерь) and he came to the Neva and Prince Aleksandr
Iaroslavich went against him on the Izhora River, driving him away and defeat-
ing his army.”89
Unfortunately it is not clear how reliable the accounts of the battle in these
sources really are. The Battle of the Neva is not recognizably referred to by
either a Swedish, Finnish or Livonian source, nor by the curia. The ‘Testament
of Magnus’ is a late literary text; the vita is a text written according to hagio-
graphical conventions more than twenty years after the events it describes and
based on oral tradition; the extract from the chronicle, which is probably more
or less contemporary, contains contradictions. The chronicler, who was writing
in Novgorod, knew of the battle only at second hand, unlike Henry of Livonia,
who often took part in battles himself, and one cannot expect the details he
provides to be accurate.90 How much of these accounts derives from the liter-
ary tradition and is simply guessing about what occurred? What do they actu-
ally describe?
John Lind has suggested, contrary to what is generally assumed, that even
the early recension of the First Novgorod Chronicle had already been influ-
enced by the vita of Aleksandr. Since it is impossible that the leader of the
Swedish army was called Spiridon, which was an extremely unusual name in
Scandinavia, this erroneous identification may be a conflation of with the
name of the then archbishop of Novgorod, Spiridon, who is mentioned in the
vita, and could have originated when the text of the vita was joined to that
of the chronicle during the rivalry between Novgorod and Sweden at the end
of the 13th century and during the 14th century.91 Other scholars have criticized
this argument with good reason: no conclusions about the history of the text
can be drawn on the basis of how the Novgorod chronicler wrote a name of

89  Новгородская Карамзинская летопись, ed. Iakov S. Lur’e (St Petersburg, 2002) (PSRL
42), p. 129; cf. NL4, p. 281: “Князь Бельгерь”; SL1, p. 430: “местерь Бельгерь”; cf. p. 328,
under 1252: “местерь же Свеискы”. On the history of the text, see Acuo Nakadzava,
Рукописание Магнуша. Исследование и тексты (St Petersburg, 2003); cf. John H. Lind,
“The Russian Testament of King Magnus Eriksson—a Hagiographic Text?” in Bisgaard,
Medieval Spirituality, pp. 195–96.
90  Gippius, “К характеристике,” pp. 349–50.
91  Lind, “Early Russian-Swedish Rivalry,” pp. 274–78. Lind’s argument is more complex than
can be done justice to here.
150 chapter 3

the “Swede” that was, to him, foreign.92 Moreover, the author of this part of
the Novgorod Chronicle uses expressions in his work that are typical of hagio-
graphical texts. Even the author of the chronicle’s original variant took the oral
tradition as his point of departure, with all its uncertainties about what had
happened (“and some thought that . . .”).93
The significance of the Battle of the Neva in the stance taken by the Baltic
powers towards Rus’ is tied to the question of the so-called Tavastia crusade. A
letter from Gregory IX to the archbishop of Uppsala from the end of 1237 men-
tions that the Tavastians had reverted to their pagan beliefs and that approval
could be given for a crusade to force them back to Christianity. The Swedish
rhymed chronicle, the Erikskrönikan, written in the third decade of the 14th
century, contains an account of the crusade of Birger Jarl to Tavastia.94 This
crusade has traditionally been dated to 1249–50. However, more recently the
idea that Birger’s crusade took place slightly earlier, around 1238–39, mainly
on the basis of this letter from Gregory IX, has gained increasing acceptance
among scholars.95 The letter indicates that the apostasy of the Tavastians was
attributable to incitement by enemies of the cross from the surrounding areas
(inimicis crucis prope positis). The text also refers to “a number of barbarians”
(quosdam barbares) who had fought against the novella ecclesie Dei plantatio.96
These “enemies of the cross” were understood to include Novgorod, and the
Karelians or other Finnish tribes.97 In fact, the letter does not contain ­anything

92  Lur’e, Россия, pp. 107–08. Cf. Nazarova, “Crusades,” p. 185.

93  Gippius, “К характеристике,” pp. 349–50.
94  Erikskrönikan enligt cod. Hol. D2 jämte avvikande läsarter ur andra handskrifter, ed.
Rolf Pipping (Uppsala, 1963) (Samlingar utgivna av Svenska fornskrift-sällskapet H. 231,
vol. 68), lines 89–154. Also lines 155–56: “That same land was baptized throughout; I
mean, the Russian prince lost [the land]” (“Thz samma land thz vart alt cristith/ jak tror
at rytza konungen mistit”). The conflicts between Novgorod and Sweden in Karelia that
were taking place when the chronicle was written in the 1320s have evidently been pro-
jected on to the past. The Christians are contrasted with the pagans in this episode.
95  For an overview of the historiography, see Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси против крестоносной
агрессии, pp. 197–206; Lind, “Early Russian-Swedish Rivalry,” pp. 283–94; Lind, “Bishop
Thomas,” p. 308. The dating of the crusade to the end of the 1250 is not convincing as
proposed by Jouko Vahtola, “Finnlands kirchenpolitische Verbindungen im frühen und
mittleren 13. Jahrhundert,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas N.F. 32 (1984), 509–10. It
has been questioned whether the account of the crusade contained in the Erikskrönikan
can be used as a source for the period of Birger Jarl at all. See Gisela Nordstrandh, “En
kritisk läsning av Erikskrönikans första korstågsepisod,” Historisk Tidskrift för Finland 75
(1990), 9–31; cf. Lindkvist, “Crusades,” pp. 123–24.
96  FMU 1, no. 82; ST 1, no. 86.
97  See Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси против крестоносной агрессии, pp. 143–44, which contains
a historiographical overview; Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, p. 222; Krötzl, “Finnen,” p. 54.
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 151

that could be clearly construed as a conception of Rus’ as an enemy of the

Catholic faith. Firstly, the letter does not use clear and precise terminology. It
is more logical in general to consider as “enemies of the cross” all those neigh-
bours of the Tavastians, or a section thereof, who had been baptized but then
fallen into apostasy: Rus’ was not one of the immediate neighbours of the
Tavastians.
If the Battle of the Neva had been connected with approval for a crusade
obtained from Gregory IX in 1237, it would follow that the Neva campaign would
also have been conducted by the institutions proper to crusade. In this sense, it
is of secondary importance whether the Neva undertaking was a consequence
of the Tavastia campaign98 or replaced it.99 It is doubtful whether it can be
argued that papal crusading policy was being steered against Novgorod. The
key point is that the Neva region was still pagan at the time. This would make it
possible to refer to a missionary war that was not aimed against Christian Rus’.
However, the Neva was indeed a trade route of vital importance to Novgorod
and its control by Sweden would have completely clashed with Novgorod’s
interests. The Neva campaign could be placed in the same context as attempts
by previous and successive Swedish rulers to gain control of the region of the
Neva and Volkhov estuaries. Precisely such a view of the events on the Neva
as a military campaign in a strategically important area is above all consistent
with the sources, and as one of many campaigns, rather than an attempt to
impose Catholicism on Novgorod.100 The Battle of the Neva first acquired its
significance as a turning point in history in the later literary tradition from the
beginning of the 14th century, when Sweden became a constant military oppo-
nent of Novgorod. The announcement in the Novgorod Chronicle that the ene-
mies wished “to take possession of Ladoga, or in one word, of Novgorod, and of
the whole Novgorod Land” functions more as a rhetorical device to emphasize
the heroism of the prince and the Novgorod army.101 The suggestion that the
Swedes tried to build a castle in the area is also pure speculation.102

98  Lind, “Bishop Thomas,” p. 313; Jaakkola, Suomen varhaiskeskiaika, pp. 277–78.
99  Pirinen, Suomen kirkon historia, pp. 60–61; Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси против
крестоносной агрессии, p. 154.
100  Nazarova, “Крестовый поход,” p. 197; Floria, У истоков, pp. 145–49.
101  See also Dmitrii S. Likhachev, Человек в литературе Древней Руси (Moscow, 1970),
p. 46. One of the elements reflected in Aleksandr’s vita could also be a heroic tradition of
the boyar class of Pruskaia street in Novgorod. See Ianin, Очерки, pp. 123–35; Nazarova,
“Crusades,” p. 185.
102  Lind, “Early Russian-Swedish Rivalry,” pp. 294–95; Kuchkin, “Александр Невский,”
p. 24; Nazarova, “Крестовый поход,” pp. 198–99; eadem, “Crusades,” p. 185; Petr E. Sorokin,
“Усть-Ижора—поле Невской битвы (результаты изучения и перспективы создания
152 chapter 3

According to the Novgorod Chronicle, the Swedish “prince” was also pres-
ent at the battle; the army leader Spiridon and possibly also a bishop were
killed. We know that all incumbent Swedish bishops were still alive after 1240.103
John Lind, proceeding on the assumption that the Neva campaign was a con-
sequence of the ‘crusade’ to Tavastia, added that Birger Jarl might have been
the “prince” referred to. Birger (born c. 1200/10, d. 1266) does not appear as jarl
until 1248, but he was already playing a leading role in Swedish politics from
the 1230s. He had probably already served as leader in 1240 of a navy (ledung)
assembled from the coastal areas and based on the army. Lind found confir-
mation for his theory in the form of the “master Bel’ger” (местерь Бельгерь)
mentioned in the ‘Testament of Magnus’.104 However, Lind’s notion that a
hypothetical, later lost Novgorod Chronicle could have served as a basis for this
late account is not persuasive.105 Igor Shaskolskii was convinced of the apocry-
phal nature of the information regarding Birger’s participation and of its origin
in folklore. He argued that not Birger, but the jarl Ulf Fasi had led the Swedish
army. Vladimir Pashuto further developed Shaskolskii’s suggestion to the effect
that both jarls, Birger and Ulf Fasi, had fought at the Neva against Aleksandr.106
It has also been contended that the Norwegians could not have taken part
in the Battle of the Neva, as claimed in the Novgorod Chronicle, because the
internal political situation was too unstable at the time.107 However, it is still
feasible that some Norwegian knights took part, albeit not a large number.108
The chronicle appears to list all Novgorod’s Scandinavian opponents and their
leaders as a way of glorifying the bravery of the Novgorodians and their prince
without this necessarily representing an accurate list.109
Ultimately, all that can be said with certainty is that the Battle of the Neva
took place. The rest remains unknown: who was behind it, what the plans of

музея-заповедника),” in Ладога и ее соседи в эпоху средневековья, ed. Anatolii N.

Kirpichnikov et al. (St Petersburg, 2002), pp. 300–10.
103  Lind, “Early Russian-Swedish Rivalry,” p. 275; idem, “Bishop Thomas,” pp. 307–08.
104  Lind, “Early Russian-Swedish Rivalry,” pp. 279–81; idem, “Bishop Thomas,” p. 313.
105  Lind, “Early Russian-Swedish Rivalry,” p. 283.
106  Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси против крестоносной агрессии, pp. 171–79; Pashuto, Внешняя
политика, p. 293. See also Nakadzava, Рукописание, pp. 21, 83–85, 90–91.
107  Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси против крестоносной агрессии, pp. 159–65; Lind, “Early
Russian-Swedish Rivalry,” p. 276.
108  Fennell, Crisis, p. 103; Kuchkin, “Александр Невский,” p. 32. In 1237 King Haakon
Haakonsson of Norway (d. 1263) took the crusading vow, but was unable to fulfil his prom-
ise because of internal conflicts in Norway. See Islandske Annaler indtil 1578, ed. Gustav
Storm (Oslo, 1888), pp. 25, 65, 130 (“Hákon konungr crossaðr”), 188, 327.
109  Cf. Lind, “Bishop Thomas,” pp. 311–12.
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 153

the Swedish navy were, and who was in command of the troops. We certainly
cannot make claims about plans by the popes or the Scandinavian monarchs
to subjugate Rus’ or Novgorod to the Catholic church. The only source pointing
in this direction, the letter of Pope Gregory IX of 1237, deals with the peoples
of Finland and does not refer to Rus’. The reference in the vita to the “king of
the Roman land” and the claim in the Novgorod Chronicle that bishops took
part, both of which are fictitious, pursue a particular aim or have a partial basis
in fact: the function of the “king of the Roman land” in the text of the vita is
to be a worthy opponent of the ‘King of Israel’, namely Aleksandr, while, on
the other hand, bishops did also take part in other military campaigns apart
from crusades.
Friedrich Benninghoven has also put forward a hypothesis about the partic-
ipation of the former Sword Brothers or their successors, the Livonian branch
of the Teutonic Order, in the Battle of the Neva. This was based on the notions
of William of Modena’s coordinating role and of coordinated campaigns.
Benninghoven argued that his theory (with reservations) was also confirmed
by the 16th-century Voskresenski Chronicle, which also mentions “mas-
ters” (местери) in the Swedish army.110 The First Novgorod Chronicle, how-
ever, refers to a “prince” in the same passage.111 It appears that in the course
of the revisions made in the 15th century the earlier terminology of “prince”,
“men” (князь, мужи) etc. in the episodes relating to Sweden was replaced by
more current terms, such as “master” and “governor” (местерь, наместники
etc.), which also showed Livonian influences. The Sword Brother Rudolf von
Kassel, who had served in diplomatic missions, later bore the name Rudolf ‘von
Nu’, which is probably reminiscent of the Neva.112 Even if he did take part in
the battle, however, this does not automatically mean that the Teutonic Order
was present as an institution. Rudolf von Kassel belonged to the opposition to
the new leadership after the merger of the Sword Brothers with the Teutonic
Order, and in 1240 he could not even have been in the country; he could just
as easily have taken part in the occupation of Votia in 1240–41, which would
equally create an association with the Neva region.

110  Летопись по Воскресенскому списку, p. 147: “собра силу велику, местери и бискупи
свои”. The expression is in fact already present in the older (15th century) chronicles: SL1,
p. 305; Симеоновская летопись, p. 61.
111  N L1, p. 291: “и събра вои множество, силу велику зело Свея съ княземъ и пискупы
своими”; cf. NL1, p. 77: “Свеи съ княземь и съ пискупы своими”. The corresponding
passage in the letopisi (except the older rescension of the First Novgorod Chronicle) is
influenced by the vita of the saintly Aleksandr.
112  Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 370–72, 376, 381, 429–30; cf. Valerov, Новгород, pp. 168–69.
154 chapter 3

Aleksandr’s victory at the Neva did not guarantee his position in Novgorod.
After Pskov fell under the control of his opponents, he left Novgorod sometime
at the end of 1240 or beginning of 1241, and “went out from Novgorod with his
mother and his wife and all his court, to his father in Pereiaslav, having quar-
relled with the men of Novgorod”.113 This also shows that no great threat was
felt in Novgorod—the invasion of Votia did not begin until after Aleksandr’s
departure and the Battle of the Neva had already been relegated to the past.

3.3.2 The Conquest of Votia in 1240–41

Independent sources for the campaign against Votia are provided by the
Novgorod Chronicle, the vita of Aleksandr Iaroslavich, the chronicle of the
Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order by Hermann von Wartberge (1360s and
1370s),114 and an extant charter of the Bishop of Ösel from 1241.
According to the Novgorod Chronicle, the Germans and Estonians arrived
in Votia in the winter of 1240–41. There they plundered, imposed tribute on
the land, and built a castle in Koporye. They also plundered Tesovo, and were
only thirty versts from Novgorod, killed merchants, and “from the Luga river
reached as far as Sablia”; the Lithuanians, Germans, and Estonians took all
the horses and cattle from the Luga, so that nothing could be ploughed in the
villages in the spring. Aleksandr had returned in 1241, and now attacked the
Germans in Koporye with the Novgorodians, the warriors from Ladoga, the
Karelians, and the Ingrians, seizing the castle and taking some of the Germans
as prisoners to Novgorod, but releasing others. Aleksandr had the treacherous
Votians and Chuds hanged, however. The following year when peace was made
Votia and Luga were returned by “the Germans” to Novgorod.115 “Lithuanians”
in this context will have meant the subjects or allies of the Teutonic Order in
Lettgallia.
Aleksandr’s vita relates that during the years after the Battle of the Neva
people came from a land to the west and built a castle in Aleksandr’s land. The
castle was soon almost completely destroyed by Aleksandr and “they them-
selves” were either hanged, taken prisoner or set free out of an enormous sense

113  N L1, p. 78; Kuchkin, “Борьба,” pp. 135–36; Vasilii F. Andreev, “Александр Невский и
Новгород,” in Средневековая и новая Россия. Сборник научныx статей к 60-летию
профессора Игоря Я. Фроянова, ed. Vladimir M. Vorobev et al. (St Petersburg, 1996),
p. 249.
114  Anti Selart, “Die livländische Chronik des Hermann von Wartberge,” in Geschichts­
schreibung im mittelalterlichen Livland, ed. Matthias Thumser (Berlin, 2011) (Schriften der
Baltischen Historischen Kommission 18), pp. 59–85.
115  N L1, p. 78. Cf. SL1, pp. 310–11; NL4, p. 227.
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 155

of mercy.116 Hermann von Wartberge mentions the construction of the castle

of Koporye and that “the Russians of Votia” were made liable to pay taxes.117
A charter from Bishop Henry of Ösel states that he agreed an alliance with
the Teutonic Order in Riga on 13 April 1241.118 This provided for the division of
power between them in the land located between “already converted Estonia
and Rus, that is, in Votia, the Neva, Ingria, and Karelia, and hoped for their
conversion to the Christian faith”. They immediately sought papal approval for
this division. This land had been conquered by the building of a castle there by
the Teutonic Knights and with the consent of many of its inhabitants. Now the
collection of taxes by the church was agreed, but the fields of the “Germans”,
which were already enfeoffed in the vicinity of the castle, and the fields of the
Order were exempt from the tithe. All real power in the land would thus be
reserved to the Order. The castle mentioned was probably that at Koporye. The
occupation of the region was achieved rapidly, since the fiefs had already been
distributed by the spring. This makes it likely that there was collaboration on
the part of local leaders—perhaps indeed with the “treacherous Chuds” later
hanged by Aleksandr.119
The campaign against Votia must be seen in the context of the missions to the
pagans. The Votians were still mainly pagan at the time. The vita of Aleksandr
Iaroslavich mentions an elder of the Ingrians, who, unlike his people, was
baptized.120 In fact, even at the beginning of the 16th century the influence of
Christianity in the Baltic-Finnish areas in north-west Rus’—in Votia, the lands
of the Ingrians, and Karelia—was no more than superficial. Archaeologists
have discovered precisely in the vicinity of Koporye a change in burial cus-
toms to ones resembling Christian burial c. 1240, which may be related to these
events.121 Without discussing at this point what the r­ elationship between the

116  Begunov, Памятник, p. 190.

117  Hermanni de Wartberge Chronicon Livoniae, ed. Ernst Strehlke, in SRP, vol. 2, p. 30:
“Ruthenos Watenses faciens censuales”. See also Wachtsmuth, Ueber die Quellen, p. 10.
118  L UB 3, no. 169a; Schirren, Verzeichniss, p. 2, no. 15.
119  See also Nazarova, “Crusades,” p. 187.
120  Begunov, Памятник, p. 189.
121  See Evgenii A. Riabinin, Финно-угорские племена в составе Древней Руси. К истории
славяно-финских этнокультурных связей. Историко-археологические очерки
(St Petersburg, 1997), pp. 41, 81; Iurii M. Lesman, “Динамика изменения численности
населения Северо-Запада Новгородской земли в ХI–ХIV вв. (к реконструкции и
интерпретации),” in Новгород и Новгородская земля. История и археология (Тезисы
научно-практической конференции), ed. Valentin L. Ianin et al. (Novgorod, 1988),
pp. 56–57; Lind, “The Russian Testament,” pp. 204–05; Nazarova, “Crusades,” pp. 177–80;
Evgenii A. Riabinin, “От язычества к христианству (по материалам средневекового
156 chapter 3

Christianity of the theologians and its popular manifestations consisted in, it

is significant that Votia and Karelia were regarded at this point as pagan lands.
Aleksandr’s vita later deals with the construction of the castle of Koporye in
Aleksandr’s land, bearing in mind that the vita considers Novgorod a personal
possession of the prince. However, it is not clear how secure Novgorod’s con-
trol was in Votia at the time. Two dates are cited in the early history of Votia:
1069, when the Votians went to war against Novgorod, and 1149, when Novgorod
attacked the Tavastians, who had invaded Votia.122 Evidence of the firm link
between Votia, or at least a part of it, and Novgorod emerges in the first half of
the 13th century. The Novgorod Chronicle records a famine among the Votians
in 1215. This shows that the region fell within the chronicler’s range of interest,
as does the description of the military campaign of 1241. According to Henry
of Livonia, the Livonians took “Russian captives” from Votia and Ingria; the
latter was described as belonging “to the kingdom of Novgorod”.123 There are a
number of references to Votia’s dependence on Novgorod from the second half
of the 13th century.124 It is nevertheless unknown how much of Votia fell within
this dependency c. 1240.125 The reference to collaboration with the local elite
in both the charter of the bishop and the account in the Novgorod Chronicle
about the hanging of traitors indicate an opposition aimed against Novgorod
or the prince which could be exploited by those who had occupied the land
and levied taxes on it. The written sources do not say anything about the
occupation of the fortified settlements of Votia (Kaibolovo and Voronino).126
The Votia campaign was therefore a continuation of the process of
Christianization already under way in Estonia. Its aim was to conquer the
pagan territories and obtain rule over them by means of baptism. The cam-
paign against Novgorod was launched because of the ties between Votia and

прошлого Северо-Западной Руси),” in Культурное наследие Российского государства,

vol. 3, ed. Anatolii N. Kirpichnikov et al. (St Petersburg, 2002), pp. 135–38; Ergo-Hart Västrik,
“Les pratiques supersticieuses des habitants de la piatina vote dans la première moitié du
XVIe siècle. Le rapport entre description ethnographique et rhétorique missionnaire dans
les chroniques russes et dans les lettres pastorales des archevêques de Novgorod,” Études
finno-ougriennes 42 (2010), 35–82.
122  See Riabinin, Финно-угорские племена, p. 17. Cf. NL1, pp. 17, 28, 215.
123  H CL XXV.6, p. 185.
124  N L1, pp. 54, 253. See Riabinin, Финно-угорские племена, p. 18.
125  Riabinin, Финно-угорские племена, pp. 20, 29–43; Anti Selart, “Zur Sozialgeschichte der
Ostgrenze Estlands im Mittelalter,” ZfO 47 (1998), 526–29.
126  According to Riabinin, Финно-угорские племена, p. 28, the possibility still cannot be
excluded that the fortified settlement at Kaibolovo was destroyed during the warfare of
1240–41.
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 157

Novgorod, but the crusade was not explicitly aimed against Christian Rus’.
The references not only to Votia, but also to the Neva, Ingria, and Karelia thus
point towards greater plans in the region, but also to the fact that the pagan
territories north-east of Estonia were treated as a single unit.127 Similarly, the
subjection of the trade route into Rus’ to the control of the Livonian powers
appears to have been a step in the same direction. Tesovo, Luga, and Sablia
were located on the winter route that led to Novgorod and were also the main
settlements in an otherwise extremely marshy landscape. The Votia campaign
is consistent with the continual conquest of pagan lands provided for in the
Treaty of Stensby. Commercial considerations may also have played a part in
this respect. According to the Treaty of Stensby, however, Denmark too should
have taken part in these events, yet there is no evidence of this in the sources.
The argument has long been proposed that it was by means of the Votia cam-
paign that the Teutonic Order managed to secure its positions against none
other than the Danish king.128 From 1238 to 1346 the Teutonic Order did not
share a common border with Votia and Novgorod at all.
Extremely revealing in this context is the treaty between the Teutonic Order
and Bishop Henry of Ösel. King Valdemar II died on 28 March 1241, but news
of this is hardly likely to have travelled as far as Riga by 13 April, when the
treaty was agreed. It is noteworthy that both Bishop Henry and the Teutonic
Order had the opportunity to take action against the Danish king. Henry was
politically weak and reliant on the Order.129 Thanks to the Order’s support, the
bishop was indeed able to administer his diocese, in return for which he had to
transfer land ownership to the Teutonic Order. A constant dissatisfaction with
the transfer of northern Estonia seems to have festered among a section of the
Order, while on the other hand the Danish monarchy laid claim to Wiek and
the former small lands of central Estonia held by the Order. Not until 1251 did
King Abel of Denmark waive his rights to the territories of Bishop Henry.130 For
this reason, the Order’s collaboration with the bishop of Ösel appears logical
and it is also understandable that it was aimed against Denmark’s interests.

127  Anti Selart, “Водь в западноевропейских источниках XIII–XIV века,” in Stratum Plus.
Культурная антропология и археология 5 (2005–2009), 529–38.
128  Johansen, Estlandliste, p. 140.
129  See also LUB 3, no. 169; Busch, Nachgelassene Schriften, pp. 22–23, 87–88.
130  D D 1/7, no. 113; 2/1, nos 45–46; LUB 1, nos 228–29; Busch, Nachgelassene Schriften,
pp. 21–24; Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, pp. 172, 216; Johansen, Estlandliste, p. 144;
Benninghoven, Orden, p. 378. Cf. Nyberg, “Skandinavien,” p. 248.
158 chapter 3

Bishop Henry went to the pope in Rome “concerning his affairs” in 1241,131 per-
haps precisely in relation to the case against the Danish king.
On the assumption that the return of Harria and Vironia to the king of
Denmark had caused great dissatisfaction among the vassals there and that the
enfeoffments of Koporye cited in the treaty between the bishop and the Order
did take place, Paul Johansen argued that the vassals of Harria and Vironia
had taken part in the Votia campaign. The vassals Dietrich von Kivel and Otto
von Lüneburg did in fact later have interests in Votia.132 In Vironia there were
indeed a number of vassals who had not received their fiefs from the king, and
the legitimacy of part of the possessions of Kivel was not recognized by the
Danish king.133 However, this does not justify drawing such a close connec-
tion between the occupation of Votia and the vassalage of Vironia, as Johansen
does. Nor is such a cooperation demonstrated by a treaty apparently agreed
against the Danish king: on 1 October 1243 the bishops of Riga, Dorpat, and
Ösel together with the deputy master of the Livonian branch of the Teutonic
Order concluded a treaty in Riga regarding “the cultivation of the vineyards of
the Lord among the pagans”. Each party promised the others “counsel and aid”
(consilium et auxilium) in the endeavour.134 This treaty has been interpreted
by some historians, in the aftermath of the Battle of the Ice, as being aimed
against Rus’.135 However, over a year had passed since the battle, peace had
been concluded, and Aleksandr and his brother Andrei had long since left
Pskov. On the other hand, the Danish king persisted constantly in his claims

131  L UB 3, no. 169; Busch, Nachgelassene Schriften, pp. 87–88. See Bunge, Livland, p. 43, 86–87
no. 7.
132  Johansen, Estlandliste, pp. 140–41. Conversely, Friedrich G. von Bunge in Das Herzogtum
Estland unter den Königen von Dänemark (Gotha, 1877), p. 36 concluded that the Danish
king’s vassals did not take part in the Votia campaign. After northern Estonia had been
handed over to the king, some vassals of the Teutonic Order left the country but the major-
ity were able to rearrange their relationship with the new territorial lords (Benninghoven,
Orden, p. 306). In other words, the tension between the vassals and the Danish king
should not be made an absolute determining factor.
133  Johansen, Estlandliste, pp. 135–39, 800.
134  L UB 6, no. 2725; Fünfundzwanzig Urkunden zur Geschichte Livlands im dreizehnten
Jahrhundert aus dem Königlichen Geheimen Archiv zu Kopenhagen, ed. Carl Schirren
(Dorpat, 1866), pp. 8–9, no. 10.
135  Axel von Gernet, Verfassungsgeschichte des Bisthums Dorpat bis zur Ausbildung der Land-
stände [Jurjew (Dorpat), 1896] (Verhandlungen der gelehrten Estnischen Gesellschaft zu
Dorpat 17), pp. 103–04; Ramm, Папство, p. 133.
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 159

in Livonia.136 Thus the treaty of 1243 was more likely to be aimed against the
Danish king.137
The actions of the Teutonic Order in Votia in 1240 most probably aimed first
and foremost at continuing the missionary conquest of the ‘pagan’ areas of
the region. While it did indeed provoke the conflict with Novgorod, it was not
aimed against a ‘schismatic’ enemy. The main motivation for the Order was to
prevent the potential expansion of the king of Denmark in a territory immedi-
ately bordering the royal possessions in Estonia.

3.3.3 Livonia and Pskov, 1240–42

In 1240 a military campaign was launched from Livonia against Pskov, result-
ing in the overthrow of the faction that supported the rule of Aleksandr
Iaroslavich. Early in the spring of 1242 Aleksandr recaptured the city and on
5 April defeated the Livonian army in what has become known as the Battle of
the Ice. The independent sources for these events include the Livonian Rhymed
Chronicle, the First Novgorod Chronicle, the vita of Aleksandr Iaroslavich, the
Laurentian Chronicle, and the Chronicle of Suzdal.138 It is doubtful to what
extent the information found in the chronicles of Pskov can be regarded
as original.139
The Rhymed Chronicle records after the transfer of northern Estonia
to the Danish king that Bishop Hermann of Dorpat had come into dispute
with the Russians “at this time”.140 The Russians had turned against the bishop
and done him much harm. The bishop asked the Teutonic Knights for help,
and their master had also come to his aid. The “men of the king” (kuniges
man)—a contingent from Danish territory—had also arrived to give help.

136  A copy of the treaty from the 16th century published by Carl Schirren reads: “A[ndreas]
gerens vicem Magistri per Liuoniam Estoniam et Gwyroniam”. Consequently, in this case
not Curonia, but rather Vironia (Wyronia, according to Johansen, Estlandliste, p. 801) or
Jerwia (Gerwia) are concerned. Cf. the title of the provincial master in LUB 1, nos 169, 236,
241, 285; LUB 3, nos 169, 258a.
137  Bunge, Livland, pp. 32–33; Busch, Nachgelassene Schriften, p. 25; Benninghoven, Orden,
p. 444. Cf. DD 1/7, no. 327.
138  For an overview of the sources, see Iurii K. Begunov, Igor E. Kleinenberg and Igor P.
Shaskolskii, “Письменные источники о Ледовом побоище,” in Ледовое побоище 1242 г.
Труды комплексной экспедиции по уточнению места Ледового побоища, ed. Georgii N.
Karaev (Moscow-Leningrad, 1966), pp. 173–239. Cf. Lur’e, Россия, p. 101.
139  See Begunov, Kleinenberg and Shaskolskii, “Письменные источники,” pp. 180–82;
Grabmüller, Pskover Chroniken, pp. 102–13, 126; Okhotnikova, Повесть, p. 62; Valerov,
Новгород, pp. 39–42, 161.
140  L R, line 2070: “bie den zîten”.
160 chapter 3

The chronicler also writes that this army took Izborsk, where all Russians who
defended themselves were killed. Russians from Pskov clashed in fighting with
the Order, the men of the Danish king, and the army of Bishop Hermann, and
were defeated at Izborsk. The Russians fled to the River Velikaya. A siege of
Pskov then began, whereby “many knights and squires / deserved their right to
a fief”.141 The city surrendered, weakened from the lost battle, its prince Gêrpolt
freely handed over the castle and good land to the knights so that the mas-
ter of the Order would take care of them. The Order’s army then left Pskov,
leaving behind two knights and a small contingent of Germans to guard the
territory. When the prince of Novgorod heard of this, he came with his army
to Pskov and drove away the two knights, who were acting as bailiffs: “if Pskov
were held / it would be a great thing for Christendom / until the End of the
World. / It is a misfortune / if somebody has conquered good lands / but failed
to man it well: he may well complain at the damage”, writes the chronicler in
conclusion.142 The prince of Novgorod returned to his city but then the prince
of Suzdal Alexander arrived with a large army and advanced further on to
Livonia. When the bishop of Dorpat learned of this, he prepared for an attack.
The armies of the Order and Dorpat, even united, were too small and they were
overwhelmed by the superior number of Russians. Twenty Teutonic Knights
were killed and six were taken prisoner. Aleksandr returned to his land. After
describing the battle, the chronicler adds that the Order’s master Herman
Balke had been at war with both the Russians and the pagans for five and a half
years and had then died.143 The capture of Izborsk in 1240 and the two knights
with their small entourage are also mentioned in the chronicle of Hermann
von Wartberge.144
The Novgorod Chronicle has the following account. In 1240, after the
Battle of the Neva, Izborsk castle was captured by the Germans, namely by
the men from Odenpäh, Dorpat, and Fellin, acting together with Prince
Iaroslav Vladimirovich. When news of this reached Pskov, an army left to
fight the enemy and was defeated. The Germans proceeded to burn the out-
skirts of Pskov together with their churches and icons, books, and gospels.
They destroyed a number of villages near Pskov, besieged the city for a week,
and took the children of the venerable men hostage. Then the “treacherous”
Pskovians, Tverdilo Ivankovich and others, let the Germans into the city and

141  L R, lines 2143–2144: “manich ritter und knecht/ vordienten wol ir lêhenrecht”.
142  L R, lines 2195–2201: “wêre Plezcowe dâ behût/ daz wêre nû dem cristentûme gût/ biz an
der werlde ende./ ez ist ein missewende,/ der gûte lant betwungen hât/ und der nicht wol
besetzet hât: der claget wen er den schaden hât”.
143  L R, lines 2065–2298.
144  Hermanni Chronicon, p. 29.
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 161

set themselves up together with them as rulers of Pskov, plundering the vil-
lages of the Novgorod Land as well. Some Pskovians fled with their women and
children to Novgorod. When the Germans invaded Votia, the Novgorodians
asked Iaroslav Vsevolodovich to send them a prince, but were not satisfied with
whom they received, namely Andrei Iaroslavich, and asked for Aleksandr. He
did indeed come in the spring of 1241, capturing Koporye together with the
Novgorodians, the warriors from Ladoga, the Karelians, and the Ingrians. In
March 1242 Aleksandr, with the Novgorodians and his brother, attacked the
land of the Chuds and besieged Pskov, where he took the Germans and the
Chuds prisoner and sent them “in chains” to Novgorod. He himself fought
the Chuds and had his army destroy their lands. Following the crushing defeat
of a Russian reconnaissance unit, the prince and his troops moved to the lake,
where they were followed by the Germans and Estonians. In the battle “by the
Raven’s Rock on the narrow [of Lake Peipus]” on 5 April the Germans were
defeated and the Chuds took to flight. That same year a German embassy was
sent to Novgorod or to the prince promising to return everything that had been
conquered from the prince in his absence: “Votia, Luga, Pskov, Lettgallia”. The
prisoners on both sides were released as were the hostages of Pskov.145
Aleksandr’s vita narrates that in the third year after the Battle of the Neva
Aleksandr had set out in the winter for the land of the Germans with a great
army. The Germans had at that time already taken Pskov and installed their
bailiffs (тиуны) there.146 Aleksandr killed some of the Germans, took others
prisoner, and freed the city from its conquerors. He then went to the land of the
Germans to destroy it. Aleksandr achieved a great victory in the battle, taking
many prisoners, including those called the “knights of God” (божии ритори).
In Pskov he was glorified by the priests for defeating the aliens (иноязычники).
The prince nonetheless warned Pskov not to betray him during his lifetime
nor that of his grandchildren.147 The chronicles of Pskov are the only source to
add the date of the Battle of Izborsk as 16 September, but their other accounts
may have been influenced by both the Novgorod chronicles and the vita of
Aleksandr.148 The Laurentian Chronicle records that Andrei was sent by his

145  N L1, pp. 77–79.

146  In some manuscripts the term наместникы (governors) is found, but dates from a later
period. See Begunov, Памятник, p. 169; cf. p. 190.
147  Begunov, Памятник, pp. 190–91.
148  P L 1, p. 13; PL 2, p. 81. Cf. Grabmüller, Pskover Chroniken, pp. 134–35; Pickhan, Gospodin
Pskov, p. 114. The second Pskovian letopis’ dates the battle to 16 October (PL 2, p. 21).
See also Ernst Bonnell, Russisch-liwländische Chronographie von der Mitte des neunten
Jahrhunderts bis zum Jahre 1410 (St Petersburg, 1862), commentary p. 73.
162 chapter 3

father Iaroslav to the Novgorodians to help them and also refers to the battle
on the lake and that many prisoners were taken.149
The mention in the Novgorod Chronicle of Iaroslav Vladimirovich and the
men from Odenpäh, Dorpat (i.e. the soldiers of the bishop of Dorpat), and
Fellin (i.e. the Teutonic Knights) indicates a direct analogy with the events of
the 1230s, when Izborsk was temporarily occupied by a Russian army allied
with Dorpat. It is highly plausible that none other than Iaroslav Vladimirovich
is called Gêrpolt in the Rhymed Chronicle.150 The taking of hostages to guaran-
tee the treaty indicates an analogy to 1228, when a Livonian contingent settled
in Pskov and the agreement was likewise guaranteed through the handing over
of hostages.
Although the accounts found in these independent sources are highly con-
sistent with one another, it is hard to discern the significance of these events
in the overall context of contemporary relations between Livonia and Rus’.
A central role is clearly played by the bishop of Dorpat and Prince Iaroslav
Vladimirovich, whereas the Rhymed Chronicle and the chronicle of Hermann
von Wartberge, both chronicles of the Teutonic Order, concentrate on the

149  Лаврентьевская летопись, p. 470. The participation of the Danish forces is mentioned
in the contemporary sources for 1240, not 1242. For more details, see Anti Selart, “Die
Kreuzzüge in Livland Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts und das dänische Königshaus,” in Narva
und die Ostseeregion. Beiträge der II. Internationalen Konferenz über die politischen und
kulturellen Beziehungen zwischen Russland und der Ostseeregion (Narva, 1.–3. Mai 2003), ed.
Karsten Brüggemann (Narva, 2004) (Studia humaniora et paedagogica collegii Narovensis
1), pp. 125–37. John Lind’s view that LR, lines 2241–2242 (“die Rûzen hatten schutzen vil,/
die hûben dô daz êrste spil/ menlich vor des kuniges schar”) refers to the troops of the
Danish king in the Battle of the Ice is based on a misunderstanding. A Russian army is in
fact being referred to, namely the army of kunic [i.e. prince] Alexander (cf. lines 2208–09,
2213, 2226, 2263). See John Lind, “Russian Echoes of the Crusading Movement 1147–1478—
Impulses and Responses,” in Middelalderforum 3/1–2 (2003), 233.
150  For a discussion of the different identifications, see Begunov, Kleinenberg and Shaskolskii,
“Письменные источники,” pp. 219–24. The name ‘Iaroslav’ should be reproduced in the
Latin or German text as, for example, Gerceslawe (HCL XXII.4, p. 152) or *Geroslaw. There
is no mention of a prince called Iaropolk c. 1240 in either the Russian or the Livonian
sources, however. It is likely that the second part of the name has been changed or even
translated in the text of the Rhymed Chronicle: the Middle High German suffix -balt, -pold
corresponds to the Old Russian -slav. A Russian prince of unknown origin called Iaropolk
was in Novgorod in 1268 (NL1, pp. 86, 316). Nazarova, “Псков и Ливония,” pp. 594–96, sug-
gests that Gêrpolt was a son of Iaroslav; Kuzmin, “Торопецкая знать,” pp. 72–75, on the
other hand, suggests that the Iaropolk of 1240 is identical with that mentioned in 1268 and
was, moreover, a son of Mstislav Mstislavich the Bold. There is no basis in the sources for
either supposition.
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 163

actions of its members. Yet even the Rhymed Chronicle mentions that the
bishop asked the Teutonic Knights for help, in other words that this was a
catalyst for the campaign. The Rhymed Chronicle also mentions the Danish
king’s vassals, but under the year 1240 rather than 1242. The bishop of Dorpat is
acting throughout as territorial lord, not as missionary. Although these events
are sometimes regarded as an attempt, instigated and countenanced by the
papacy, to subjugate the territory and church of Rus’, this cannot be demon-
strated by any of the sources in relation to the campaign against Pskov. The
description in the Novgorod Chronicle of the burning of churches and holy
scriptures in the vicinity of Pskov is not a sign of the heresy of the occupi-
ers but simply of their criminal behaviour overall.151 The Novgorod Chronicle
deals with the destructive campaigns that took place in Novgorod’s territory in
1240–41 separately: in relation to Pskov, the chronicler refers to the destruction
of the villages in the Novgorod Land, but in relation to Koporye reference is
made to localities on the Luga river. There is no basis in the sources for treating
the campaigns as a combined attack on Novgorod from two sides.
The Rhymed Chronicle, and the tradition derived from it, appears to asso-
ciate the campaign against Pskov and the Battle of the Ice with the first mas-
ter of the Teutonic Order in Livonia, Hermann Balk. Balk had already left the
country in 1238 and died in 1240. He was succeeded by Dietrich von Grüningen
(1238/39–1246) and Andreas von Felben (1241, 1248–53). The Rhymed Chronicle
mentions the master’s participation in the 1240 campaign against Pskov, but
not, however, in 1242. The mention of the “men from Fellin” in the chronicle
appears to point to the Order’s territory in Estonia. However, the expression in
the context of the Order’s great castle that was nearest to Novgorod may have
referred to the Order as such.152 On the other hand, Evgeniia Nazarova argues
that the commander of Fellin played a key role in the occupation of Pskov.153
The fact that the Rhymed Chronicle refers principally to the Teutonic
Knights does not necessarily mean, however, that the Teutonic Order played
the most important role or that its master or his deputy, Andreas von Felben,
personally led the campaign. It has long since been pointed out that the attack
on Rus’ was not in the general interest of the Teutonic Order in Livonia. Its
main opponents were in the south: in Curonia, Samogitia, and Lithuania, not
to mention in Prussia. In 1241–1242 the Teutonic Order in Livonia, led by the
Livonian provincial master, Dietrich von Grüningen, seized Curonia with mil-

151  Cf. for example, Kronika Wielkopolska, p. 82, para. 61; cf. p. 89, para. 74.
152  Cf. NL1, p. 86.
153  Nazarova, “Крестовый поход,” p. 199; cf. Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 376–77.
164 chapter 3

itary support from the Danish vassals and the bishoprics of Riga and Ösel.154
According to Friedrich Benninghoven, the campaigns against Rus’ were
informed by the attitudes and separate policy of the former Sword Brothers
who had survived the Battle of Saule but could not come to terms with the
transfer of northern Estonia to Denmark and thus tried to assert their author-
ity by means these attacks.155 There is no evidence, however, that there was a
confrontation between two different tendencies in the Order. After the merger
of the two orders, the Teutonic Order pursued a determined policy of forcing
the former Sword Brothers into the background.156 In support of the view that
there were two opposing visions of conquest, or at least different political ten-
dencies, recourse is made to the unproven assertion that the Order had indeed
wanted to launch a campaign from Livonia to conquer Pskov or even Novgorod
in 1240. Taking part in the campaign against Pskov and the attempt to capture
Votia are not incompatible with the Order’s plans south of the Daugava.
At the centre of the campaign against Pskov was therefore the bishop-
ric of Dorpat and its relationship with Prince Iaroslav Vladimirovich dating
back to the 1230s and, by extension, to the Pskovian opposition to Aleksandr
Iaroslavich, who sought Iaroslav Vladimirovich’s ascension to power in
Pskov.157 Prince Iaroslav’s closest supporters were constantly in touch with
Odenpäh,158 which explains why the “men of Odenpäh” come first in the list of
the “Germans” in the chronicle. The fact that the “men from Fellin” come last
in this list indicates the smaller role of the Teutonic Order in comparison. The
start of the offensive may have been determined by a propitious moment in
Pskov’s ­internal political situation. The “harm” (leit) mentioned in the Rhymed

154  Aleksandr Baranov, “Завоевание Курляндии Тевтонским орденом в 1241–1242 годах,” in

Ледовое побоище в зеркале эпохи. Сборник научных работ, посвященный 770-летию
битвы на Чудском озере, ed. Marina B. Bessudnova (Lipetsk, 2013), pp. 140–52. Cf. Erich
Chudzinski, “Die Eroberung Kurlands durch den Deutschen Orden im 13. Jahrhundert,”
Phil. Diss. Erlangen (Borna-Leipzig, 1917), pp. 19–25; Benninghoven, Orden, p. 374; Militzer,
Von Akkon zur Marienburg, p. 375.
155  Benninghoven, Orden, p. 374; Bernhard Dircks, “Russisch-livländische Beziehungen in der
zweiten Hälfte des 13. Jahrhunderts,” Jahrbuch des baltischen Deutschtums 1986, 1985, pp.
26–28; Hellmann, “Begegnungen,” p. 133; Hellmann, “Stellung,” pp. 8–9.
156  Dieter Wojtecki, “Zur Identität einiger livländischer Landmeister des Deutschen Ordens
im 13. Jahrhundert,” Jahrbuch für die Geschichte Mittel- und Ostdeutschlands 20 (1971),
66–68; Militzer, Von Akkon zur Marienburg, p. 373.
157  Stern, “Dorpat-Pleskauer Kämpfe,” pp. 89–90; Nazarova, “Крестовый поход,” p. 201. Cf.
Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, p. 118.
158  Karl H. von Busse, “Die Burg Odenpäh und ihre frühere Bedeutung, ein historischer
Versuch,” Mitt. Riga 6 (1852), 333–35.
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 165

Chronicle inflicted by Rus’ on Bishop Hermann, who had to suffer it during a

long time, and the danger for Christians159 are not a direct reference to the ear-
lier military activity in the borderlands between Dorpat and Pskov c. 1239–40.
There was a constant internal political opposition in Novgorod and Pskov
which sought support from various external powers—the princes of Suzdal,
Smolensk, and Chernigov among others. Trade relations with Livonia were
crucial for all groups. We cannot say that one group had a particular interest in
trade with Livonia. Rather, we are dealing with pretenders from the different
political tendencies to the princely throne, with one of these being Iaroslav
Vladimirovich.
Pskov’s surrender in the face of the oncoming Livonian army constituted
a change of prince from the city’s point of view. The limits of the authority of
the Order’s two bailiffs remain unknown. Iaroslav Vladimirovich’s relationship
with the support army from Livonia was extremely complex, and his power
in Pskov was secured by means of the hostages. The Novgorod Chronicle
names Tverdilo Ivankovich “together with others” as the real ruler of Pskov.
He had “made himself ruler in Pskov with the Germans”. Iaroslav’s position
also depended on Tverdilo. There is no indication of who in Livonia was prom-
ised the hostages, whether the bishop of Dorpat or the Order. When describing
Livonia’s peace embassy, however, the chronicle deals with the release of the
hostages and other terms of peace affecting the Order more than the bishop
of Dorpat. The Rhymed Chronicle also mentions the fiefs that the bravest
knights had earned in the battle of Izborsk, although this may simply be part
of the conventions typical of battle descriptions. If anyone did indeed receive
a fief, this would have first meant confiscating estates from the supporters of
Aleksandr Iaroslavich, for example. Such a course of action would have inevi-
tably exacerbated the division among the burghers of Pskov.
A charter of 1248 provided for the division of the principality of Pskov
between the bishopric of Dorpat and the Teutonic Order. It mentions that the
principality “was donated by Prince Ghereslawus, its heir, to the mentioned
church of Dorpat”.160 Albert Ammann has attempted to show that this dona-
tion originally dates to 1239 and would thus account for the planned attack on
Pskov.161 This dating has been widely accepted.162 In the register of charters
brought from Mitau to Stockholm in the mid-17th century, there is, moreo-

159  L R, lines 2069–76.

160  L UB 3, no. 200a; Schirren, Verzeichniss, p. 4 no. 38, p. 129 no. 67; cf. no. 52.
161  Ammann, Kirchenpolitische Wandlungen, pp. 222–23, 274–75.
162  Taube, “Russische und litauische Fürsten,” pp. 408–09, 459; Hellmann, Lettenland, p. 177;
Nazarova, “Князь Ярослав Владимирович,” p. 43.
166 chapter 3

ver, the following entry: “1239 Dorpat. How the kingdom of Pskov was divided
between the Order and the diocese of Dorpat.”163 However, this may sim-
ply be a misreading from a transumpt of 1299 regarding the charter of 1248.164
Despite the lack of a documentary basis, the promises of Prince Iaroslav
Vladimirovich—or something that the bishopric could subsequently construe
as promises—c. 1240 appear plausible. Any military aid had to be paid for, and
the “donation” of a principality might have been the form the remuneration
took. This donation can presumably be understood in terms of feudal law, as
in the case of Vsevolod of Gerzike: perhaps Iaroslav had donated Pskov to the
bishop of Dorpat and then received it back as a fief. The relevant passage in
the Rhymed Chronicle states “that Gêrpolt who was their prince / gave with
his good will / the castle and the good lands / into the hands of the Teutonic
Knights”.165 This might have referred to this donation, which had already been
granted to the Order in 1240 as partial remuneration for taking part in the cam-
paign against Pskov. Iaroslav’s right of inheritance was in itself obviously fic-
titious. Pskov was not a heritable principality; its princes were appointed and
expelled, as was the case in Novgorod. Iaroslav’s hereditary lands would have
been Toropets and Rzhev, but his—continual?—presence in Livonia during
the 1230s suggests that he was not able to establish himself there or that these
possession did not satisfy his ambitions.166 Iaroslav Vladimirovich appears in
the sources again in 1243, when his wife, who had been killed by her stepson in
Odenpäh and buried in Pskov, is mentioned, and also in 1245, when he fought
as leader of the warriors of Torzhok along with Aleksandr Iaroslavich against
the Lithuanians’ campaign of destruction.167 He had probably died by 1248.168
According to the Novgorod Chronicle, Aleksandr left Novgorod after the
capture of Pskov and was not called back until after the invasion of Votia.
This means Novgorod did not regard the change of power in Pskov as a threat

163  Schirren, Verzeichniss, p. 129, no. 52.

164  L UB 3, no. 580a; Ammann, Kirchenpolitische Wandlungen, table on pp. 274–75. See also
Rathlef, “Verhältniss,” p. 74; Leonid Arbusow, “Die im Deutschen Orden in Livland vertre-
tenen Geschlechter,” Jahrbuch für Genealogie, Heraldik und Sphragistik 1899 (1901), 43.
165  L R, lines 2159–63: “daz Gêrpolt, der ir kunic hiez/ mit sîme gûten willen liez/ burge und
gûte lant/ in der dûtschen brûdere hant”; cf. Nazarova, “Князь Ярослав Владимирович,”
p. 44.
166  Ianin, Новгород и Литва, p. 51.
167  N L1, pp. 79, 297; Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, p. 118.
168  Another view is that he was again in Livonia after 1245 and that his ‘donation’ dates to the
period immediately preceeding 1248: Busse, “Die Burg Odenpäh,” p. 336; Peter von Goetze,
Albert Suerbeer, Erzbischof von Preussen, Livland und Ehstland (St Petersburg, 1854),
pp. 24–26, 137–43; Hellmann, Lettenland, p. 177.
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 167

despite the destruction of Novgorod villages by Tverdilo. For the 1242 campaign
against Pskov, Andrei also came from Suzdal, again suggesting that Aleksandr,
in reconquering Pskov, was acting more in his own sovereign interests rather
than those of Novgorod. At the same time, the opposition to Aleksandr in
Novgorod shows that there too there were people who sympathized with the
change of power in Pskov.
The Rhymed Chronicle says that after the conquest of Pskov the army of
Aleksandr and Andrei advanced further “into the lands of the [Teutonic]
brothers” (in der brûder lant)169 in March and April of 1242, once the bishop of
Dorpat had sent his men to help the Order. “The lands of the brothers” could
indeed have served to describe the whole of Livonia, but the chronicler dis-
tinguishes quite clearly between the different dominions and by “the lands of
the brothers” principally refers to the Order’s territory.170 The Russian army
consequently must have advanced as far as Tolowa or Sackala; the campaign
of destruction lasted long enough for the Livonians to be able to raise an army.
Bearing in mind that the Order had an interest in having Pskov under its con-
trol, however, the issue of the Tolowa tribute is certainly another factor in this
context. The destructive advance of Rus’ could have made its way there pre-
cisely because payment of the tribute had been refused. As the army of Rus’
made its way home, the troops of the Order and the bishop of Dorpat caught
up with it. In the ensuing battle Aleksandr and Andrei were victorious. The
dimensions of this battle have occasionally reached absurd proportions in the
historiography Anatolii Kirpichnikov has calculated that the Livonian army
really could amount to a maximum of 30–35 knights and over 300 sergeants
and natives and the Russians would have had been slightly more, amounting
to a total of about 1000 men for both sides together.171
According to the account in the Russian chronicles, a peace was agreed in
Novgorod in 1242, in which “Germans”—does this mean the Teutonic Order?—
ceded Votia, Pskov, the Luga, and Lettgallia to the prince and/or Novgorod.
Thus the status quo was preserved in the peace.172 The Pskov and Votia cam-

169  L R, lines 2220, 2227. The expression stifte roub und brant appears seven times alto-
gether in the Rhymed Chronicle. See Werner Meyer, “Stilistische Untersuchungen zur
Livländischen Reimchronik,” Phil. Diss. (Greifswald, 1912), p. 79.
170  L R, lines 6670–6774. See also LR, lines 6481, 7971; cf. lines 7569, 9803.
171  Anatolii N. Kirpichnikov, “Ледовое побоище 1242 года и его тактические особенности,”
in Древний Псков. Исследование средневекового города, ed. Vasilii D. Beletskii
(St Petersburg, 1994), pp. 109, 115–18. Cf. Benninghoven, Orden, p. 380. See also Militzer,
Von Akkon zur Marienburg, p. 370; Meyer, “Stilistische Untersuchungen,” pp. 163–64.
172  Stern, “Livlands Ostgrenze,” pp. 207–09; Stern, “Dorpat-Pleskauer Kämpfe,” p. 92.
168 chapter 3

paigns were therefore not connected with one another until the peace with the
Order. But a separate question is what was meant by Lettgallia (Лотыгола) in
this context. Novgorod had no interest in Lettgallia, therefore the chronicle
means here restoration to Pskov and Aleksandr. Since there are no reports of
a temporary handover of Lettgallia during Aleksandr’s rule, it would appear
plausible to assume that Pskov had relinquished the tribute from Tolowa dur-
ing the war and that its right to collect tribute there was now being reinstated.173
If the Order shared in the seizure of power in Pskov, it may indeed have been
recompensed with the tribute of Tolowa or the entire right of possession, but
was forced to accept the restitution after the loss of Pskov. It is altogether fea-
sible that Aleksandr also had interests in the Daugava, since he had just mar-
ried a princess of Polotsk.174 Aleksandr and his father Iaroslav Vsevolodovich
exercised considerable influence in the Smolensk-Polotsk region throughout
the 1240s.175
The place given to the Battle of the Ice as a significant event even in world
history is based on purely ideological concerns and has little to do with the
historical evidence.176 A distinction must be made between the great impor-
tance that the Battle of the Ice has undoubtedly had in the 20th century and its
importance for contemporaries in the 13th century. In the debate about how
much significance should be given to the battle, we must first define the frame
of reference, i.e. whether viewed in terms of the family of the grand prince of
Vladimir, Pskov, Novgorod, the bishopric of Dorpat, Rus’ or Europe. As far as
the sources from Rus’ are concerned, this was a story about how Aleksandr lost
control of Pskov only to win it back. The traitors (переветникы) in Votia and
Pskov mentioned in the Novgorod Chronicle had betrayed the prince, not Rus’
or the Orthodox religion. The warfare of 1240–42 “most likely did not change
at all the attitude of Novgorod and Pskov towards Livonia and Sweden. The
West was not seen as much of a threat or less so following the defeat”.177 This
judgement by Bernhard Dircks can be endorsed with the qualification that
the very notions of East and West are themselves anachronistic. These events
belong exclusively in the context of local struggles for power, and in the case of

173  Auns, Социально-экономическая и политическая структура, p. 18; cf. Hellmann,

Lettenland, pp. 170–71.
174  See Ammann, Kirchenpolitische Wandlungen, p. 228; Shtykhov, Древний Полоцк, p. 14;
Ianin, Новгород и Литва, p. 51.
175  N L1, p. 79; Fennell, Crisis, pp. 100–02.
176  Begunov, Kleinenberg and Shaskolskii, “Письменные источники,” pp. 169–73; Nolte,
Drang, pp. 196–232; Selart, “Aleksander Nevski,” pp. 129–40.
177  From Dircks, “Krieg,” p. 133. Cf. Fennell, Crisis, pp. 105–06; Hösch, “Ostpolitik,” p. 100.
Livonia and Rus ’ in the 1230s and 1240s 169

Pskov we are dealing with ‘internal political’ conflicts as much as with ‘exter-
nal relations’. To the extent that the church and questions of religious confes-
sion played a role at all—which was in any case in the form of justification
rather than cause—this was of such a marginal nature that it left no mark in
the sources.
In a wider sense, however, Livonia’s attempts to gain control in Votia and
Pskov during 1240–42 appear as significant. The political forces in Livonia were
able to maintain a position east of Lake Peipus for some time. The event is lent
an aura of exceptionality by the fact that we know in retrospective that Lake
Peipus became a dividing line during the Middle Ages between the Orthodox
and the Catholic worlds. In the contemporary context, this signified on the
one hand the continuation of the mission among the Votian pagans and on the
other a political intervention in Pskov, quite separate ideologically and geo-
graphically from the former. We are not dealing with a unique decision in his-
tory but with episodes from a policy practiced both before and after the Battle
of the Ice. The fact that first a victory was achieved, which itself proved fleeting
when Livonians came to face a stronger opponent in the shape of Aleksandr,
depended on circumstances beyond Livonia as well as on arbitrary factors,
principally internal political conditions in Novgorod and Pskov.
The crusade planned by the Danish king on the basis of the Treaty of Stensby
never took place. In December 1240 Pope Gregory IX authorized Uffe, the arch-
bishop of Lund (1230–52), to grant the same indulgence to those who had taken
crusading vows for Estonia as those who fought in the Holy Land. The reason
given is that the people of Estonia who had converted to Christianity were
under threat from the neighbouring pagans.178 In other words, no crusade led
by the Danish king had yet gone to Votia or the Neva region. In 1241 the succes-
sor to the throne was the main political issue in Denmark. The deceased King
Valdemar’s sons, King Erik (co-regent since 1232) and Duke Abel of Schleswig,
could not come to an agreement. During the ensuing civil war it was impos-
sible to launch a crusade. When the brothers did finally set out for Reval in
1244, they only got as far as Ystad, where they turned back, perhaps because
of the constant tension between them, which made it impossible for them to
lead a campaign together.179 In February and March of 1245 the archbishop of
Lund received renewed papal permission to preach the crusade against the
barbarians and the pagans who posed a threat to the Estonian Christians. The
approval of Innocent IV permitted King Erik to use a third of the tithes from
the ecclesiastical province of Lund over the course of three years in the fight

178  D D 1/7, no. 62; LUB 1, no. 167.

179  Annales Danici, pp. 111, 193.
170 chapter 3

against the pagans and barbarians who were harming the Estonian neophytes.180
In 1247 the pope again granted the king the right to use a portion of the church
tithes of Lund for such an offensive,181 but once more it failed to materialize.182

180  D D 1/7, nos 165, 168–70.

181  D D 1/7, nos 264–65.
182  For further information, see Selart, “Die Kreuzzüge in Livland,” pp. 133–36.
 chapter 4

Rus’ in the Catholic Sources from the First Half of

the Thirteenth Century

4.1 The Sources for South-Western Rus’

When investigating the papal letters and other written sources relative to Rus’
which originated outside the Baltic region, it must be remembered that, apart
from the Ruthenia or Rucia that bordered on Livonia, there was also ‘another’
Rus’, namely south-western Rus’—Galicia, Volhynia, and the Kiev region—
which was a lot more important from the wider perspective of European
politics as a whole. It was precisely in this region that contacts between the
Catholic and Orthodox worlds were closest. Most of the ideas and knowledge
about Rus’ that reached central and western Europe were transmitted via
Poland and Hungary, not Livonia or Scandinavia.
There has been regular discussion about the evidence in the sources for this
region of attempts to unify the two churches under papal primacy. Historians
have often repeated the claim that envoys of Innocent III offered the title of king
to the prince of Galicia and Volhynia, Roman Mstislavich, as early as 1204, but
that Roman refused it.1 The source cited for this is the so-called Königsberg or
Radziwiłł Chronicle, whose manuscript dates from the end of the 15th century.2
However, the proponents of this view have failed to take into account that
this information was added by the publisher based on the works of Vasilii
Tatishchev when the chronicle was first published in 1767,3 but is actually miss-
ing from the original manuscript.4 The year of the supposed coronation, 1204,
coincides with the year in which Constantinople was famously captured, and
was also the year in which the Bulgarian tsar Kaloyan was crowned king by
the papal legate as a result of mediation by Hungary. Tatishchev may therefore

1  See Golubinskii, История vol. 1/1, p. 598; Ramm, Папство, pp. 136–37; Günther Stökl, “Das
Fürstentum Galizien-Wolhynien,” in Handbuch der Geschichte Russlands, vol. 1, 1st half-
volume, ed. Manfred Hellmann (Stuttgart, 1981), pp. 505–06.
2  Радзивиловская летопись, ed. Margarita V. Kukushkina et al. vols. 1–2 (St Petersburg-
Moscow, 1994).
3  Библиотека российская историческая, vol. 1, [ed. Ivan A. Tauberg, Ivan S. Barkov]
(St Petersburg, 1767), pp. 299–301.
4  Cf. Tatishchev, История, vol. 3, p. 173; vol. 4, p. 331.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004284753_006

172 chapter 4

have derived his conjecture about Roman Mstislavich from these events. In
other words, it would appear that a number of sources and events have been
conflated rather than this being a case of a medieval source still extant in the
18th century but then later lost.5
Roman Mstislavich was killed in battle in 1205. His widow and two young
sons Daniil (d. c. 1264) and Vasilko (d. 1269) became the focus of an intense
power struggle in which both the boyars and the people of Galicia, as well as
its eastern and western neighbours, were involved. The widow and her two
sons received protection from the king of Hungary and the duke of Krakow.
King Andrew II (d. 1235) added to his Hungarian titles that of “king of Galicia
and Vladimir”.6 He had ruled as prince in Galicia for a few years at the end
of the 12th century, but Galicia had in fact been ruled for a longer period by
Mstislav Mstislavich ‘Udaloi’, who promised his daughter to the Hungarian
king’s son and heir Andrew.7 After Mstislav’s death in 1228, Galicia was con-
quered by another son-in-law of Mstislav, Daniil Romanovich, following a
brief period of rule by the Hungarian king.8 Once Daniil Romanovich had sup-
pressed the strong opposition supported by Hungary, he was able to consoli-
date his power throughout Galicia and Volhynia over the next decade. Daniil

5  Cf. Stryjkowski, Kronika, vol. 1, pp. 211–12: “A na drugi rok 1205, tenże Roman, Halickie, Luckie,
Wołyńskie i Włodimirskie xiąże, tituł monarchiej Ruskiej sobie przywłaszczając, zebrał
wielkie wojska”; Tolochko, “История Российская”, pp. 469–77.
6  For example, Codex diplomaticus Hungariae ecclesiasticus ac civilis, ed. Georg Fejér, vol. 2,
part 2, (Buda, 1829), pp. 103, 112, 129–30, 134, 140–41, 146, etc. use the title “Andreas, Dei gra-
tia, Hungariae, Dalmatiae, Croatiae, Ramae, Seruiae, Galliciae, Lodomeriaeque rex” His son
Coloman (d. 1241) was later called Ruthenorum Rex, for example in Vetera monumenta his-
torica Hungariam sacram illustrantia, ed. Augustin Theiner, vol. 1 (Rome, 1859), no. 172; Codex
diplomaticus Hungariae, pp. 231, 238 etc. See also Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam
sacram illustrantia, no. 1; Epistolae saeculi XIII, vol. 1, nos. 763, 800; Martha F. Font, “On the
Question of European Regions from Eleventh Through the Thirteenth Centuries,” Specimina
nova dissertationum ex instituto historico universitatis Quinqueecclesiensis 8 (1992, 1994),
176–78; Márta F. Font, “Ungarn, Polen und Galizien-Wolhynien im ersten Drittel des 13. Jh.,” in
Studia slavica Academiae scientiarum hungaricae 38 (1993), 27–39.
7  Aleksandr V. Maiorov, Галицко-Волынская Русь. Очерки социально-политических
отношений в домонгольский период. Князь, бояре и городская община (St Petersburg,
2001), p. 484. On the role of Innocent III in Hungary and Poland, see Urszula Borkowska,
“Innocent III and the Countries of the ‘New Christianity’—Poland and Hungary,” in Innocenzo
III urbs et orbis. Atti del Congresso Internazionale Roma, ed. Andrea Sommerlechner, vol. 2
(Rome, 2003) (Miscellanea della Società Romana di storia patria 44; Nuovi studi storici 55),
pp. 1169–91.
8  Mariusz Bartnicki, Polityka zagraniczna księcia Daniela Halickiego w latach 1217–1264 (Lublin,
2005).
Rus ’ in the Catholic Sources 173

and Vasilko intervened repeatedly in the internal conflicts of Poland, while the
rulers of Poland and Hungary attempted to secure their power in western Rus’.
It was against this background that Pope Innocent III wrote to the clergy
and laity of Rus’ in 1207, arguing for the pope’s primacy and the union of
the churches under Rome’s authority, promising to send his legate Cardinal
Gregory of San Vitale to the region.9 The letter was related to the supposed
success of the idea of church union in the Balkans and the claims to power of
Catholic rulers, i.e. Hungary. Even assuming that Innocent’s letter had any con-
sequences whatsoever, these had no lasting effect. The creation of an enduring
ecclesiastical union in Galicia-Volhynia was precluded by the fluctuating bal-
ance of power there.
A number of late Russian chronicles describe the violent Catholicization of
the country that followed the coronation of Andrew II’s son, the Hungarian
prince Coloman (d. 1241), as king of Galicia c. 1216.10 The reliability of these
late accounts is certainly questionable. Andrew II had written to the pope that
“the princes and the people of Galicia . . . [wish] in future to remain in unity
and obedience firmly with the holy church of Rome, but only that otherwise
they be permitted to keep their rite.”11 In addition to these various dynastic
relations, there was also a considerable Latin diaspora in the lands of south-
western Rus’. The Polish Dominicans had established a convent in Kiev by the
1230s, or perhaps even in the 1220s. Its foundation in 1222 was attributed to
St Hyacinth (d. 1257), one of the founders of the Dominican Order in Poland,
according to a vita composed in the 14th century. St Hyacinth had participated
in the organization of a crusade against the Prussians in the 1230s, coming into

9  H RM 1, no. 3; DPR, no. 3. Cf. Golubinskii, История vol. 1/1, pp. 597–98; Walter Norden,
Das Papsttum und Byzanz: Die Trennung der beiden Mächte und das Problem ihrer
Wiedervereinigung bis zum Untergange des byzantinischen Reichs (1453) (Berlin, 1903),
pp. 235–36; Widera, “Byzanz,” p. 22; Widera, “Die politischen Beziehungen,” p. 40; Octavian
Bârlea, Die Konzile des 13.–15. Jahrhunderts und die ökumenische Frage (Wiesbaden, 1989)
(Schriften zur Geistesgeschichte des östlichen Europa 18), p. 60.
10  Летопись по Воскресенскому списку, p. 119 (16th century); Московский летописный
свод конца ХV века, ed. Mikhail N. Tikhomirov et al (Moscow-Leningrad, 1949) (PSRL 25),
p. 110 (end of 15th century); Borkowska, “Innocent III,” pp. 1177–78; Floria, У истоков,
pp. 124–26.
11  Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam sacram illustrantia, no. 1: “quod Galicie p ­ rincipes
et populus nostre dictioni subiecti humiliter a nobis postularunt, ut filium nostrum
Colomanum ipsis in regem preficeremus, in unitate et obedientia sacrosancte Romane
ecclesie perseveraturis in posterum, salvo tamen eo, quod fas illis sit alias a ritu proprio
non recedere”. See also Fennell, Crisis, pp. 28, 37; Maiorov, Галицко-Волынская Русь,
p. 356.
174 chapter 4

contact with events in the Baltic as a result. According to legend, Hyacinth had
preached in Kiev, converting many Russians to the Latin faith. Kiev was ruled
at the time by Prince Vladimir Riurikovich (d. 1239), who saw himself as an
ally of none other than Daniil Romanovich in the struggle for power in south-
western Rus’. When the Polish province of the Dominican Order was founded
in 1226/28, the missionary undertaking in Prussia was taken over by the
friars of Masovia while responsibility for the mission in Rus’ was taken over
by the convents of Sandomierz, which also included St Mary’s convent in Kiev.
The majority of the Catholic community in Kiev would have comprised foreign
merchants and its Dominican convent would have been located next to an ear-
lier merchant church.12
As the Polish chronicler Jan Długosz (d. 1480) reports under the year
1233, however, Prince Vladimir expelled the Dominicans and their leader,
Prior Martinus de Sandomiria, from Kiev.13 Vladimir Riurikovich and Daniil
Romanovich were at war with Hungary at the time. Sometime around 1233–34
Prince Mikhail Vsevolodovich of Chernigov, who had been at war with Daniil,
captured Kiev, overthrew its ruler, the same Vladimir Riurikovich, and handed
the city over to Iziaslav, the son of Mstislav ‘Udaloi’.14 Sometime later, how-
ever, Vladimir Riurikovich was able to return to Kiev. In 1236 Kiev was occupied
by the Suzdal prince Iaroslav Vsevolodovich. Power in Kiev was subsequently
assumed by Mikhail of Chernigov, but in 1238 he fled to Hungary faced with the
threat of the Mongol advance. Shortly afterwards Rostislav Mstislavich from
the Smolensk dynasty became prince of Kiev. Daniil in turn forced Rostislav
to abandon the city, replacing him with one of his boyars as governor.15 The
Dominicans must have been linked to one or other of the rivals and driven out
of the city during the course of this power struggle. Apart from these political
motives, it is of course possible that religious reasons also played a role. Indeed

12  Nazarenko, “Западноевропейские источники,” pp. 378–84; Olha Kozubska-Andrusiv,

“The Dominicans in Thirteenth-Century Kievan Rus’: History and Historiography,”
Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU 9 (2003), 219–22; Giovanni di Pian di Carpine, Storia dei
mongoli, ed. Enrico Menestò et al. (Spoleto, 1989) (Biblioteca del “Centro per il collega-
mento degli studi medievali e umanistici nell’Università di Perugia” 1), IX. 51, p. 332.
13  Ioannis Długossi annales, vol. 3, p. 266 (1233). Długosz also transmits Old Russian sources
in his work. The Dominican prior Martin of Sandomierz was one of William of Modena’s
companions in 1235.
14  On the identification of Iziaslav, see Maiorov, Галицко-Волынская Русь, pp. 543–44,
560–61.
15  The exact dating of these events remains uncertain.
Rus ’ in the Catholic Sources 175

in the summer of 1233 the conditions for a change in ecclesiastical policy were
ripe when Metropolitan Kirill of Kiev died.16
Part of the political background to the expulsion of the Dominicans from
Kiev is also indicated by the fact that Gregory IX issued a series of letters relat-
ing to Rus’ precisely in February and March 1233. On 24 February he wrote
to the Polish Dominicans forbidding them from conducting marriages of
Catholic women to the heretical Russians, since he had been informed that
they proceeded to have their wives rebaptized according to their rite.17 In a
letter dated 25 February to the archbishop of Gniezno and the bishop of
Krakow, the pope rebuked the Polish princes, who are said to have suppressed
their people with such harshness that they had fled to the Prussians and hereti-
cal Russians.18 In another letter to the archbishop of Gniezno, the provost of
Wrocław (Breslau), and the Polish Dominicans dated 27 February, the pope
instructed them to ensure that the Polish princes lived in peace in future and,
if fighting among themselves, that they did not enter into any alliances with
the Saracens, Russians or other enemies of the Catholic faith so as not to defile
it.19 On 15 March in a letter to the Polish provincial prior of the Dominican
Order and the Dominicans in Rus’ the pope promised that those who heard
their preaching in Rus’ would receive an indulgence of forty days and other
special privileges.20 On 15 June 1234 the pope took under his protection the
Dominican Ulricus, his fellow friars, and all Latins in Kiev as a “bastion for the
eulogy of the name of the Lord in Rus’”.21 The date recorded by Długosz for
the expulsion of the Dominicans is not necessarily absolutely accurate. It is
likely that the Polish Dominicans, including the friars in Kiev, were involved

16  James Zatko, “The Union of Suzdal, 1222–1252,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 8
(1957), 38; Winter, Russland, pp. 86–87; Dimnik, Mikhail, pp. 77–78; Natalia I. Shchaveleva,
“Киевская миссия польских доминиканцев,” in DG 1982 год, 1984, p. 150.
17  D PR, no. 7; HRM 1, no. 34; Vetera monumenta Poloniae et Lithuaniae gentiumque finiti-
marum historiam illustrantia, ed. Augustinus Theiner, vol. 1 (Romae, 1860), no. 44. Cf.
Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam sacram illustrantia, no. 759.
18  HRM 1, no. 35; Vetera monumenta Poloniae, no. 45; Epistolae saeculi XIII, vol. 1, no. 513.
19  HRM 1, no. 36; Vetera monumenta Poloniae, no. 46.
20  H RM 1, no. 38; DPR, no. 8. These and other letters relating to the dioceses of Gniezno,
Krakow, and Olomouc were evidently requested simultaneously by an embassy. See
August Potthast, Regesta pontificum Romanorum inde ab a. post Christum natum MCXCVIII
ad a. MCCCIV, vol. 1 (Berlin, 1874), pp. 780–82.
21  H RM 1, nos. 39–40; Vetera monumenta Poloniae, nos. 55–56; DPR, nos. 9–10; Akta Grodzkie
i Ziemskie z czasów Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z Archiwum tak zwanego Bernardyńskiego we
Lwowie, ed. Aleksander Stadnicki, vol. 7 (Lviv, 1878), pp. 2–3, no. 2.
176 chapter 4

in political activity in which they attempted to discredit the opposing party

by accusing them, among other things, of collaborating with the schismatics.
This would have been followed the reprisals in Kiev in the second half of 1233
or beginning of 1234.
During this same period some Polish princes did in fact cooperate with
Russians. When Prince Leszek the White was killed in 1227, a struggle for the
throne of Krakow ensued in which Duke Conrad of Masovia received back-
ing from the princes of Volhynia and the pagans.22 Around 1230 the armies of
Daniil captured Kalisz and destroyed the area near Wrocław. The Polish pro-
vincial prior of the Dominican Order had his residence in Krakow; its second
centre was Wrocław. Duke Henry the Bearded of Silesia occupied Krakow in
1232 and waged constant war against Conrad over Greater Poland over the next
several years. These events do not allow one to speak of a break in papal pol-
icy towards Rus’ in the 1230s, as affirmed by Boris Floria, who argued that the
previously passive attitude of the Polish clergy changed to encourage the
active mission to Rus’ from now on and was also able to influence papal
policy.23 Rather, the policy of the Polish higher clergy and secular lords is
reflected in these letters in which allying with the schismatics is cited as a valid
argument in the struggle against their opponents.24
These papal letters evidently failed to have any real impact on either the
relationship between the different religious confessions on the frontier
between Poland and Rus’ or the activities of the Dominicans there. Thus a
Dominican convent in Halych was founded c. 1238, where the Franciscans were
also active. The mendicant activity prepared the groundwork for the actual
negotiations for church union in the following decades.25 South-western Rus’
(Galicia, Volhynia, Kiev, and Chernigov) formed a common political space with
Poland and Hungary throughout the 1220s and 1230s. Prince Daniil of Galicia’s
schismatic affinities did not prevent him, for example, from being a constant
ally of the dukes of Austria.26

22  Kronika Wielkopolska, pp. 82–83, paras. 61–62. The chronicler mentions that the soldiers
of both Henry and Conrad destroyed the churches. See also Bronisław Włodarski, Polska i
Ruś 1194–1340 (Warsaw, 1966), pp. 91–135.
23  As argued by Floria, У истоков, pp. 139–44.
24  See also Benedykt Zientara, Heinrich der Bärtige und seine Zeit. Politik und Gesellschaft im
mittelalterlichen Schlesien (Munich, 2002) (Schriften des Bundesinstituts für Kultur und
Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa 17), pp. 308–09.
25  Ioannis Długossi annales, vol. 3, p. 283 (1238); Rhode, Ostgrenze, pp. 156–57; Shchaveleva,
“Киевская миссия,” p. 149; Nazarenko, “Западноевропейские источники,” pp. 378–84.
26  See Maiorov, Галицко-Волынская Русь.
Rus ’ in the Catholic Sources 177

In 1257 the pope confirmed to the bishop of Lebus the latter’s request for
jurisdiction over all Latins in Rus’, meaning in this case in south-western Rus’.27
The reason behind this claim is unclear. It appears to have been related to the
issue of possession of the monastery of Opatów in Lesser Poland, which had
been founded by Duke Casimir the Just (1177–94). Sometime around 1232–33
Gerhard, the abbot of the collegiate church of Opatów, was ordained Latin
bishop in Rus’, with one source referring to the Catholic population there
(G[erardus] Ruthenorum episcopus pro catholicis ibi degentibus de novo fuerat
creatus). Several decades later Gerhard is described as a Cistercian.28 The
appointment of this missionary bishop may have been the result of the activ-
ity of another bishop, the Cistercian Christian of Prussia, who was linked
to Poland and had been awarded the privilege of founding bishoprics and
appointing bishops.29 Thus the papal letters to the Dominicans discussed
above also reveal the rivalry between the different religious orders. In 1232 the
pope informed the Polish provincial of the Dominicans that the archbishop of
Gniezno (Fulco, 1232–58) planned to found a bishopric in Rus’.30 Duke Conrad
of Masovia, who had also been behind the foundation of Gerhard’s episcopal
see, appears to have had close ties with the Cistercians, whereas Henry the
Bearded was closer to the Dominicans. Opatów had shortly before been trans-
ferred by Henry, who had just gained control of the region of Sandomierz, to
the bishopric of Lebus. After the death of Gerhard (after 1254), Lebus was thus
apparently laying claim to its inheritance.
The missionary activity of the Dominicans had already extended further
east by that time. On the basis of a Hungarian tradition relating to a Magna
Hungaria far in the east, the Hungarian Dominicans evidently moved to
Bolghar or the Bashkirs in the 1230s. From there they brought reports to Latin

27  D PR, no. 33; cf. Vetera monumenta Poloniae, no. 926; AV, nos. 70, 83.
28  On Gerhard and the donation of Opatów to Lebus, see Kronika Wielkopolska, p. 82,
para. 61; p. 101, para. 105. In 1254 Gerhard is mentioned as the first bishop from Rus’ imme-
diately after the first bishop of Lithuania, Vitus, in a sequence of a number of Polish
prelates.
29  Herbert Ludat, Bistum Lebus. Studien zur Gründungsfrage und zur Entstehung und
Wirtschaftsgeschichte seiner schlesisch-polnischen Besitzungen (Weimar, 1942), pp. 216–78;
Rhode, Ostgrenze, pp. 158–61; Józef Szymański, “Kanonicy opatowscy w planach polityki
ruskiej z przełomu XII i XIII wieku,” Przegląd Historyczny 56 (1965), 388–96; Shchaveleva,
Древнерусские известия, pp. 62–64; Dunin-Wąsowicz, “Projets,” pp. 538–40.
30  D PR, no. 6; Berthold Altaner, Die Dominikanermissionen des 13. Jahrhunderts. Forschungen
zur Geschichte der kirchlichen Unionen und der Mohhamedaner- und Heidenmission des
Mittelalters (Habelschwerdt, 1924) (Breslauer Studien zur historischen Theologie 3), pp.
216–18.
178 chapter 4

Europe full of hope that the peoples and rulers of those regions wished to
join the church of Rome.31 These ‘eastern Hungarians’ allegedly did not, how-
ever, dare convert to Catholicism for fear of persecution from the pagans and
Russians, while the latter in turn feared the merger of two Hungarys as a pre-
lude to the conquest of Rus’.32 Around 1235 the grand prince of Vladimir and
Suzdal, Iurii Vsevolodovich, had replied to a request from the Mordvins to bap-
tize them that the issue was already in the hands of the pope, since “soon the
time will come when we will have to adopt the faith of the Roman church and
join the papal obedience”.33 This still did not prevent him from expelling the
Dominicans from his lands and forbidding them from preaching to the pagans
in the Volga regions.34 In this period, when rumours were circulating through-
out Europe about the ‘Tatars’ and their Christian king Prester John, it was
expected that the pagan peoples would convert to the Catholic faith in quick
succession. There was very little doubt about how far this desire for conver-
sion corresponded to reality. Thus the union of the church of Rus’ with Rome
might have indeed appeared feasible. In the 1230s there were also discussions
for union between the Empire of Nicaea and Rome, which alternated with calls
to crusade against the schismatics of Bulgaria and Greece. In December 1235
Gregory IX called on King Béla IV of Hungary and his brother Coloman, who
continued to hold the title ‘king of the Russians’, to support the Latin Empire
in a crusade against Nicaea.35
It is in this context that Pope Gregory IX wrote to an unnamed prince
of Rus’ in 1231. In the registers of Gregory IX the addressee is given as illus-
tri regi Russie but in the copy published by Aleksandr Turgenev (1784–1846),
based on a later Vatican manuscript, this was expanded to Georgio illustri

31  Heinrich Dörrie, Drei Texte zur Geschichte der Ungarn und Mongolen: Die Missionsreisen
des fr. Julianus O.P. ins Uralgebiet (1234/35) und nach Rußland (1237) und der Bericht des
Erzbischofs Peter über die Tartaren (Göttingen, 1956) (Nachrichten der Akademie der
Wissenschaften in Göttingen I. Philologisch-historische Klasse, Jg. 1956, 6), pp. 155–56,
159–60. Cf. Johannes Fried, “Auf der Suche nach der Wirklichkeit. Die Mongolen und die
europäische Erfahrungs­wissenschaft im 13. Jahrhundert,” Historische Zeitschrift 243 (1986),
287–91; Johannes Giessauf, Die Mongolengeschichte des Johannes von Piano Carpine.
Einführung, Text, Übersetzung, Kommentar (Graz, 1995) (Karl-Franzens-Universität.
Schriftenreihe des Instituts für Geschichte 6), pp. 23–25, 44–45.
32  Dörrie, Drei Texte, p. 159.
33  Dörrie, Drei Texte, p. 161.
34  Dörrie, Drei Texte, p. 180.
35  See Norden, Papsttum, pp. 341–83, Maier, Preaching, pp. 37–38.
Rus ’ in the Catholic Sources 179

Regi Russie.36 Assuming that “George” is not an error (perhaps mistaken for
the pope’s name?), a possible candidate for the addressee would be the grand
prince of Vladimir and Suzdal, Iurii Vsevolodovich (1212–38) given that Iurii is
the Russian equivalent of George.37 Others have instead suggested that Daniil
Romanovich was the recipient of this letter.38 In the letter Gregory IX first sets
out the case for papal supremacy of the church before going on to mention that,
according to information provided by the bishop of Prussia, the prince in ques-
tion, although a Christian, followed with his people the rite of the Greeks and
Russians. Now, however, the pope had heard he was ready, with his kingdom,
to join in union with the church of Rome. The mention of Bishop Christian
of Prussia may be an argument against Iurii of Vladimir as the addressee.
Christian (d. 1245) was a Cistercian from Pomerania and had become the mis-
sionary bishop to the Prussians in 1215. He enjoyed close ties with Duke Conrad
of Masovia, whereas Iurii’s known contacts with the Catholic clergy took place
through the Hungarian Dominicans. At the same time Iurii also intervened in
the struggle for power in Kiev, Daniil’s brother Vasilko was Iurii’s son-in-law,
and Prince Mikhail of Chernigov his ally.39 Most likely the letter was connected
with the policy of the Polish princes, however.

4.2 Rutheni in the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia

The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia and its account of Rus’ were discussed in
chapter two. However, the attitude to Rus’, the Russians, and the schismatics
found in this source, which is indeed the main source for the history of Livonia

36  AV, no. 31; PUB 1/1, no. 86; DPR, no. 5; cf. HRM 1, no. 33; Bullarium Poloniae, vol. 1: 1000–
1342, ed. Irena Sułkowska-Kuraś and Stanisław Kuraś (Rome, 1982), no. 261; Les registres
de Grégoire IX, ed. Lucien Auvray, vol. 1 (Paris, 1896) (Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises
d’Athènes & de Rome, 2e serie, vol. 9), no. 684, p. 433; Acta Honorii III et Gregorii IX e
registris Vaticanis aliisque fontibus, ed. Aloysius Tăutu (Vatican City, 1950) (Pontificia
Commissio ad redigendum codicem iuris canonici orientalis. Fontes, Serie 3, vol. 3),
no. 167.
37  For example, Golubinskii, История, vol. 1/1, p. 600; vol. 1/2, p. 808; Zatko, “Union,” p. 36;
Pashuto, Внешняя политика, p. 350; Nazarenko, “Западноевропейские источники,”
p. 392. Cf. also Ammann, “Gedanken,” p. 119, where a Daugava prince is identified with
the addressee. On the errors in the publication by Turgenev, see Kurt Forstreuter, “Zur
Geschichte des Christburger Friedens von 1249,” ZfO 12 (1963), 298–99.
38  For example, Altaner, Dominikanermissionen, p. 215; Forstreuter, Preußen, p. 25; Bârlea,
Konzile, pp. 61–62; cf. Floria, У истоков, pp. 143–44.
39  Maiorov, Галицко-Волынская Русь, p. 605.
180 chapter 4

in the early 13th century, requires further overall analysis. The German histo-
rian Christoph Schmidt investigated the image of Rus’ in Henry’s chronicle,
concluding that this was entirely negative:

Whereas Henry can also be read as an ethnographic source for the Livs,
Letts, and Estonians, relating countless details about their ancient beliefs,
his perception of the ‘Rutheni’ is governed to such an extent by the politi-
cal, military, and religious conflict that impressions about the culture and
life of the east Slavs are totally lacking. Incomprehension, rejection, per-
haps also fear, thus combine to form an extremely negative image of Rus’,
which was already considered as virtually the natural opponent even at
the formative stage of the Livonian state.40

According to Schmidt, the Russians came increasingly to be seen as Livonia’s

enemies as the chronicle narrative progresses and more pagans adopt
Christian values through baptism.41 There is no doubt that the political and
military context was important for Henry’s chronicle, but it is highly question-
able to claim that he places particular stress on the religious conflict. On the
contrary, the Christianity of the Russians is repeatedly stressed in the chroni-
cle. The judgements pronounced by Henry about the Russians should not be
taken out of their context. A great number of them, for example, relate to the
activities of Prince Viachko, an undisputed military foe of Livonia, as well as
a Christian helper to the ‘apostate’ Estonians. The question is to what extent
the chronicler’s attitude towards Viachko can be extended to the whole of
Rus’. The enduring political cooperation between Prince Vladimir Mstislavich
of Pskov and Bishop Albert suggests that religious conflicts in fact played a
much smaller role in Livonian history. A disparaging attitude on the part of the
chronicler towards Rus’, becoming more deeply rooted over time, corresponds
to the development of relations between Livonia and Rus’, not to religious dif-
ferences. Henry describes a war with the pagans in Livonia and Estonia; the
Russians enter the picture merely as the helpers of the pagans and thus the
war against Rus’ is regarded as secondary. Schmidt’s explanation for the lack
of ethnological descriptions of Russians therefore has no foundation, for even
though Henry had taken part in several expeditions against the pagans, he still
lacked personal contact with the regions comprising Rus’. Henry’s chronicle is

40  Schmidt, “Bild,” p. 520.

41  Schmidt, “Bild,” pp. 519–20. The examples cited by Schmidt (HCL XIII.4, pp. 69–71;
XXVII.5–6, pp. 197–99; XXVIII.2, 5, pp. 200, 204) do not place the Russians clearly outside
the Christianity.
Rus ’ in the Catholic Sources 181

not, after all, a relevant source for the everyday life and customs of the Danes
either, even though they obviously shared the same religious denomination
as Henry. The very nature of the genre of the missionary chronicle demands
that there should be a description of the vanquished pagan culture, something
which was not necessary in the case of the Russians and the Danes.
Indeed, the attitude to the Danes in Henry’s chronicle is also extremely neg-
ative. He considered them intruders in Livonia; the priests of the Danes had
come “into a foreign harvest”.42 According to Henry, the Swedes had already
revealed at the end of the 12th century that, unlike the Germans, they were not
concerned about baptism, but preferred to obtain tribute instead.43 He makes
the same accusation about the princes of Rus’.44 Accordingly, Plures . . . matres
sought to win over Estonia, a daughter of the Livonian church, in the hope
of obtaining levies and booty, and one of these “mothers”, namely Rus’, had
been “always sterile and barren”.45 The others were therefore the Danish and
Swedish rulers, who in Henry’s opinion, unlike Riga, were similarly interested
only in their revenues. In 1220, when Bishop Albert was unable to obtain papal
support against the Danish king, he sought backing instead from the newly
crowned emperor Frederick “against the grievous disturbances both of the
Danish king and of the Russians or of pagans”. However, since the emperor
was occupied just then with preparations for his crusade to the Holy Land, he
did not help Albert, but instead urged him to live in peace with Denmark and
Rus’.46 In this section in Henry’s chronicle the Danes, Russians, and the pagans
are again cited together as enemies of the Livonian church.
Henry’s judgemental attitude towards Riga’s rivals is most clearly expressed,
without regard for the question of their religious adherence, in his so-called
eulogy to the Virgin Mary.47 In 1221 King Valdemar II of Denmark sent his bailiff,
the knight Godesalcus, to Riga, with the aim of implementing on the ground
the subordination to the Danish monarchy confirmed by Albert in 1218. When
this knight was forced to leave Livonia, his ship ran into danger at sea. Henry
praises the Lord for punishing the bailiff for having dishonoured the Virgin

42  H CL XXIV.2, p. 170.

43  H CL I.13, p. 7.
44  H CL XVI.2, p. 103.
45  H CL XXVIII.4, p. 202.
46  H CL XXIV.4, p. 173.
47  See Maschke, Der deutsche Orden, p. 22; Leonid Arbusow, Liturgie und Geschichtsschreibung
im Mittelalter. In ihren Beziehungen erläutert an den Schriften Ottos von Freising († 1158),
Heinrichs Livlandchronik (1227) und den anderen Missionsgeschichten des Bremischen
Erzsprengels: Rimberts, Adams von Bremen, Helmolds (Bonn, 1951), pp. 66–67; Benning­
hoven, Orden, pp. 171–73.
182 chapter 4

Mary, the guardian of Livonia. Henry lists the rulers who had fought against
Livonia and suffered defeat, mentioning in succession the princes of Rus’
(Vladimir of Polotsk, Vsevolod Mstislavich of Novgorod, Vsevolod of Gerzike,
Viachko of Kokenhusen), the Swedish jarl Karl, Bishop Karl of Linköping, King
Valdemar II of Denmark, and the elders of the Livs, Lettgallians and Estonians
who had fallen in battle:

And what kings whether of pagans or of Danes or of other nations, have

fought against Livonia and have not perished? Consider and see, you
princes of the Russians, or the pagans, or the Danes, or you elders of
whatever people. Fear this gentle Mother of Mercy. Adore this Mother
of God and give satisfaction to Her, Who takes such cruel revenge upon
Her enemies.48

Hostility towards the Danish king is also shown by the Rhineland Cistercian
Caesarius of Heisterbach (d. after 1240) in an exemplum connected to Livonia:49
He interprets the king’s imprisonment by Count Henry of Schwerin between
1223 and 1225 as a punishment imposed by the Virgin for his claims to extend
his power over the Livonian church.50 Henry’s work is clearly apologetic in
nature. We are dealing with a chronicle of the Rigan church, whose aim was to
defend that church from its rivals and those who looked upon it with envy. One
of the arguments used by Henry is indeed Livonia’s very location, threatened
on all sides, in medio plurimarum nationum ac Ruthenorum adiacentium, qui
omnes consilium fecerunt in unum, ut eam destruerent.51 The schismatic atti-
tude of Rus’ revealed itself as a certain inclination to enter into alliances with
the pagans and apostates, which was the very predisposition that made it so
dangerous.52 Similar accusations, not only aimed against the schismatics, had
already been brought by earlier chroniclers of the missions to the Baltic. Both
Adam of Bremen (d. 1081/85) and Helmold of Bosau accused the Saxon rulers
of only caring about their revenues and not bothering about the baptism of

48  H CL XXV.2, pp. 178–81.

49  Barbara Bombi, “The authority of miracles: Caesarius of Heisterbach and the Livonian
crusade,” in Aspects of Power and Authority in the Middle Ages, ed. Brenda M. Bolton and
Christine E. Meek (Turnhout, 2007), pp. 305–25.
50  Die Wundergeschichten des Caesarius von Heisterbach, ed. Alfons Hilka, vol. 1 (Bonn, 1933)
(Publikationen der Gesellschaft für Rheinische Geschichtskunde 43), pp. 159–60, no. 234.
51  H CL XIV.7, p. 78.
52  See for example HCL XIV.5, p. 75; XVI.5, p. 111.
Rus ’ in the Catholic Sources 183

the Slavs. Their policies are supposed even to have incited the people to turn
apostate on occasion.53
Henry’s treatment of Rus’ may also have been influenced by his personal
antipathies. He and his patron, Bishop Philip of Ratzeburg, came into conflict
with Vladimir Mstislavich of Pskov.54 For this reason it is not justified to say
that the negative image of Rus’ in Henry’s chronicle was inevitably determined
by religious conflicts.55 In the first few decades of the 13th century Livonia and
neighbouring Rus’ constituted a common political culture in which religious
difference was not decisive in terms of political decision-making.56

4.3 Papal Policy: Livonia and Rus’

A direct interest on the part of the papacy in Livonia’s policy towards Rus’ is
said to be reflected in the papal letters. In general, implementing a consistent
policy requires the relevant information to be systematically organized to
some degree. However, it is not clear to what extent connections were made
between the reports about Livonia and Rus’ that reached the curia with reports
about Poland and Rus’ or Hungary and Rus’. An issue that would later form
a political link between Livonia and Poland, the missionary activity and cru-
sades in Prussia, was only at its incipient stage during the episcopate of Albert
of Riga. Moreover, even if the papacy had wished to take steps to convert Rus’

53  Lotter, “Crusading Idea,” p. 284.

54  Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, p. 102.
55  See, with different nuances, Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 186, 190–91; Vahtre, Muinasaja
loojang, p. 11; Angermann, “Mittelalterliche Chronistik,” p. 8; Hösch, “Ostpolitik,” p. 98;
Torben K. Nielsen, “Sterile Monsters? Russians and the Orthodox Church in the Chronicle
of Henry of Livonia,” in Murray, Clash of Cultures, pp. 227–52; Jüri Kivimäe, “Henricus the
Ethnographer,” pp. 101–02; Linda Kaljundi, “(Re)Performing the Past: Crusading, History
Writing, and Rituals in the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia,” in The Performance of Christian
and Pagan Storyworlds. Non-Canonical Chapters of the History of Nordic Medieval
Literature, ed. Lars Boje Mortensen et al. (Turnhout, 2013) (Medieval Identities: Socio-
Cultural Spaces 3), pp. 329–31.
56  Görlich, Zur Frage, p. 155; Dircks, “Krieg,” pp. 121, 126; Floria, У истоков, pp. 127–32. Cf.
Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert, pp. 164–65; Matuzova and Nazarova, Крестоносцы,
pp. 32–33; Olena Assmann, “Das Russlandbild in der Livländischen Chronik Heinrich
von Lettlands,” in Vorstellungswelten der mittelalterlichen Überlieferung. Zeitgenössische
Wahrnehmungen und ihre moderne Interpretation, ed. Jürgen Sarnowsky (Göttingen, 2012)
(Nova mediaevalia 11), pp. 119–35.
184 chapter 4

to Catholicism through its policy in Livonia, it would have lacked the means to
realize this ambition.
A connection had already been drawn between Livonia and Rus’ as early
as the confirmation issued in 1188 by Clement III to Bishop Meinhard of
Üxküll (see p. 80), but it was not until the pontificate of Innocent III that more
detailed and substantive information began to emerge. In 1203–04 the future
bishop of Estonia, Theodoric, made his way to Innocent III in Rome accom-
panied by Caupo, the quasi rex of the Livs of Treyden. According to Henry’s
chronicle, Caupo was also asked by the pope about the peoples living on
Livonia’s borders.57 The pope may also have been referring to these reports
when he wrote to the clergy of Constantinople in 1205 in connection with their
return to obedience under Rome. Innocent says that he had made a good catch
fishing insofar as he had converted the pagans in Livonia, restored the unity
of the church in Bulgaria and Wallachia, and sent legates to Armenia.58 After
spending the winter of 1206–07 in Riga, Archbishop Anders Sunesen of Lund
sent the pope a report of his activities.59 Bishops Albert and Theodoric told
the pope about the Livonian church at the Lateran Council of 1215.60 At the
very latest by the time of these last reports it would have been possible to men-
tion the wars conducted against the Russian princes on the Daugava, although
Pskov and Novgorod were still not regarded as opponents of the Rigan church
at this time.
At the Lateran Council the pope also proclaimed that the Greek church
had returned to the cradle of the Catholic church. This certainly represented
the desire rather than the reality, but after the foundation of the Latin Empire
there was at least a certain basis for this belief. The next set of negotiations for
ecclesiastical union took place between the Empire of Nicaea and the Roman

57  H CL VII.3, p. 21; LR, lines 322–84.

58  Die Register Innocenz’ III., 7. Band, 7. Pontifikatsjahr, 1204/1205, under the supervision
of Othmar Hageneder, ed. Andrea Sommerlechner and Herwig Weigl (Vienna, 1997)
(Publikationen des historischen Instituts beim österreichischen Kulturinstitut in Rom, 2.
Abteilung, 1. Reihe, vol. 7), no. 203, p. 355: “ubi ego in verbo Dei laxavi rete, conclusimus
ego et fratres mei piscium multitudinem copiosam, sive in Liuonia, convertendo paganos
per predicatores illuc directos ad fidem, sive in Bulgaria et Blachia reducendo divisos ad
unitatem, seu etiam in Armenia requirendo diutius derelictos per legatos ad hos populos
destinatos”.
59  Leonid Arbusow, “Ein verschollener Bericht des Erzbischofs Andreas von Lund aus dem
Jahre 1207 über die Bekehrung Livlands,” Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft für Geschichte
und Altertumskunde der Ostseeprovinzen Russlands aus dem Jahre 1910, 1911, pp. 4–6; LUR,
no. 31a. Cf. DD 1/4, nos. 125, 126 (papal reactions to the information of Anders Sunesen).
60  H CL XIX.7, p. 132; LUR, no. 71.
Rus ’ in the Catholic Sources 185

church between 1218 and 1222.61 The prerequisites for the papacy to be able to
exercise an independent policy towards the schismatics were therefore pres-
ent in Rome. However, there is no evidence in the sources that papal policy
towards Rus’ too was driven by Livonia.
In 1222 Honorius III informed the “judges” of Livonia ( judicibus in Livonia)
that he had learned from the bishop of Livonia (i.e. Albert) that Russians had
settled in Livonia who observed the Greek rite, ignored Latin baptism, neither
celebrated the feast days nor observed the rules of fasting, and dissolved the
marriages of neophytes. The pope urged the secular rulers to ensure that these
Russians remained under the Latin observance where the Greek rite differed
from that “of the head, that is the church of Rome”.62 Friedrich Benninghoven
has pointed out that this letter was related to a diplomatic campaign carried
out by Bishop Albert against the Order of the Sword Brothers. Three further let-
ters were issued on the same day admonishing the Order.63 In other words, this
letter was not directed primarily against the Russians, but the Sword Brothers.
Plausible candidates for the location of the Russian settlement referred to
would appear to be Tolowa and Adsel, since these had originally been baptized
according to the Orthodox rite and were now controlled by the Order, but just
as conceivable would be the precursors of the emerging urban settlements of
Wenden and Fellin. The use of the Greek rite indicates the presence of Russian
clergy. The “dissolution of the marriages” of the newly baptized may be the
result of the different beliefs of the Catholic and Orthodox churches regarding
marriage between relatives. The Eastern church adhered to the requirement
that had emerged in the early Middle Ages whereby marriage was forbidden
to relatives up to the seventh degree of consanguinity. The Catholic church,
having taking into account the impracticability of enforcing this require-
ment among the nobility, took a more lenient approach to marriages between
relatives. The Lateran Council of 1215 resolved that only marriages up to the
fourth degree of consanguinity would be forbidden. This meant that some
marriages that were valid from a Catholic point of view were not permitted
as far as Orthodox believers were concerned.64 This letter suggests at least
the possibility that in the area under the control of the Sword Brothers or in
those areas allied to them, such as Tolowa, Russian clergy were able to exercise
their duties with the Order’s consent. Any change in religious ­adherence for

61  Norden, Papsttum, pp. 341–83.

62  H RM 1, no. 12; LUB 1, no. 55; LVA, no. 101.
63  Benninghoven, Orden, p. 235; Pitz, Papstreskript, pp. 108–09. See also LUR, nos. 179–180b;
LVA, nos. 98–100.
64  Dekrete, pp. 257–58, para. 50; Podskalsky, Christentum, p. 179.
186 chapter 4

the newly baptized Christians would probably have meant simply a change
in rite, that is, even supposing that Orthodox religious services took place at
all in Tolowa at the beginning of the 13th century. Whenever there was a
change in the balance of power or principal ally, the recipient of any church
taxes would also have changed. Just as the penetration of real ‘German’ power
in everyday life was not sudden but took place over a number of decades and in
several phases—this was a particularly long process especially in the periph-
eral areas—there was a long transitional period from a confessional point
of view, in which the original pagan, the original Orthodox (particularly in
Latvian territory), and the Catholic elements merged with one another.
On 16 November 1224 Honorius III sent a letter to all Christians in Rus’
(universis Christi fidelibus per Russiam constitutis) calling upon them to make
donations to support the bishops of Livonia, Selonia, Leal (i.e. Dorpat), and
others proclaiming the Gospel and protecting the land from pagan attacks.65
At the same time the pope also took the opportunity to define the limits of the
bishopric of Selonia. The embassy that this letter had aimed at may have set
out from Livonia in the autumn following the capture of Dorpat at the end of
August 1224. Relations with Novgorod had still not been definitively resolved
by this time. Thus in 1223 the peace with Smolensk and Polotsk in the Daugava
region was renewed. Even before the siege of Dorpat the Rigans had attempted
repeatedly to avoid clashing with Viachko by demanding that he leave the
castle. In view of the fact that Livonia’s approach was to avoid conflicts with
Rus’, the letter of Honorius III may represent an attempt to persuade the rul-
ers of Rus’ not to aid the pagans. We do not of course know exactly who was
understood as the addressee in Livonia on the one hand and whom the papal
chancery considered it addressed to.66 What is certain is that this letter does
not express any hostility towards Rus’.
In 1225 the papal legate William of Modena was in Livonia. “The Russians of
Novgorod and from other cities” (including Vsevolod of Gerzike) sent envoys
asking him to confirm the peace between Riga and Pskov and Novgorod agreed
in 1224. William listened to their concerns and “strengthened their faith with
many exhortations”, so that the Russian envoys returned home full of joy67—
this expression in the chronicle is intended to indicate the harmony reigning

65  L UB 1, no. 66; LVA, no. 108. Cf. Regesten verlorener Urkunden aus dem alten livländischen
Ordensarchiv, ed. Theodor Schiemann (Mitau, 1873), p. 1, no. 1.
66  Cf. Taube, “Russische und litauische Fürsten,” p. 392; Pitz, Papstreskript, pp. 112–13, 138;
Altaner, Dominikanermissionen, p. 214.
67  H CL XXIX.4, p. 211.
Rus ’ in the Catholic Sources 187

among Christians.68 When William returned to Rome, Honorius III issued two
letters in which a connection was made between Livonia and Rus’. Both are
dated 17 January 1227. One is addressed to the princes of Rus’,69 the other to
the German citizens of Visby.70 In the latter the pope first took the town and
church of Visby, which had shown great courage in defending the church of
Livonia and Estonia, under his protection from those in a position to impede
this struggle to convert the Osilians and other pagans. In other words, this let-
ter was aimed against King Valdemar II of Denmark,71 particularly with ref-
erence to the military campaign against Ösel that William was attempting to
organize. The capture of Dorpat in 1224 may also have been a sign of the hostil-
ities against the Russians. The former letter states that the pope had also been
told by his legate that the envoys of the Russian princes, with whom the legate
had met, had asked him to visit their lands. The envoys had implied that they
would be willing to renounce their errors (i.e. the Orthodox religion), which
had been brought about by—sicut dicitur—bad preachers and for which God
had punished the Russians enough. The pope now asked the Russian princes
to send out their letters and envoys for the legate’s commission. Honorius III
also urged them to safeguard a stable peace with the Christians in Livonia and
Estonia and not to prevent the spread of Christianity, unless they wished to
face punishment by the pope. It is quite clear that this letter was based on the
meeting between William of Modena and the Russian envoys in Riga in 1225.
It was already possible to infer the idea of submission of the Russian church
merely from the desire to conclude peace with the Latins. Gerzike was indeed
more firmly controlled by Riga in 1224 than before (see p. 101), which is consis-
tent with the strengthening of the military and social position of Catholicism
along the Daugava’s middle course.
The question remains to what extent this letter to the Russian princes
reflects the true situation in Livonia and to what extent William’s personal
perspective or, indeed, Honorius’ own policy towards Rus’. Some scholars have
seen this letter as evidence of a serious intention on the part of the papacy to
convert Rus’ to Catholicism.72 Others have argued that William himself came
up with such a plan as a result of the contacts he had made in Riga.73 A third

68  Cf. Undusk, “Sacred History,” pp. 70–74.

69  H RM 1, no. 21; DPR, no. 4; LUB 1, no. 95: “Universis Regibus Rusiae”.
70  H RM 1, no. 20; BD, no. 207; LUB 1, no. 94; LVA, no. 148.
71  Benninghoven, Orden, p. 218.
72  Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, pp. 78–80, 217; Zatko, “Union,” p. 35; Krötzl, “Finnen,” p. 53.
73  Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert, p. 165; Benninghoven, Orden, p. 198; Pitz, Papstreskript,
p. 145.
188 chapter 4

possibility has also been proposed, namely that Novgorod cherished the desire
for closer relations with the Catholic world given that the prince of Novgorod
at the time, Mstislav Vsevolodovich of Chernigov, was the son of a Polish
princess and had extensive involvement in the relations of south-western Rus’
with Poland and Hungary, as well as because of Novgorod’s own need to find
allies against the princes of Suzdal.74 Novgorod was indeed in a difficult posi-
tion at the time. Grand Prince Iurii Vsevolodovich was attempting to overrun
the city by blockading its eastern trade routes.75 Thus there must have been a
meeting in Riga at which the issue of faith was discussed, although its content
and outcome and remain unknown. William’s hopes probably belonged in the
context of the other negotiations taking place for ecclesiastical union and were
no doubt misunderstood at the curia. William, as the pope’s former vice-chan-
cellor, must have had an overall view of eastern European affairs. However, on
the basis of both of these letters, which, moreover, had no apparent conse-
quences, it cannot be affirmed either that Rome conducted a consistent policy
towards Rus’ through Livonia or that papal hostility towards Rus’ was a deter-
mining factor in that policy.
The ‘normality’ of relations between the Livonian powers and the princi-
palities of Rus’ is stressed even further by the commercial links that quickly
developed during this period between Livonia’s emerging towns and Polotsk,
Smolensk, Pskov, and Novgorod. There was not always a straightforward rela-
tionship between trade and political power. During the period of Danish domi-
nance in the Baltic up to the 1230s it is too early to speak of the supremacy of
German merchants in the region. Both German and Scandinavian merchants
were represented in Novgorod and Gotland, at the heart of the Baltic mari-
time routes and trade.76 To a certain extent this issue also informed relations
in Danish-controlled Estonia. In 1221 Rigan merchants were arrested in Rotalia
by the Danes and were not released until the Rigans threatened with war.77 Yet
although commercial interests were undoubtedly a consideration, they can-
not be regarded as the decisive factor. The relationship between merchants
and the authorities in Riga was not always entirely unproblematic.78 The trade
conducted by the Danish St Knud’s guilds had been superseded by Lübeck and
other German towns on the Baltic since the second quarter of the 13th century,
when the power of the Danish monarchy began to decline. In the absence of

74  Hellmann, Lettenland, pp. 159–61; cf. Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, p. 103.
75  N L1, pp. 64, 267–68.
76  Kattinger, Gotländische Genossenschaft, pp. 158–59.
77  H CL XXV.5, pp. 184–85.
78  H CL XXV.3, pp. 181–82.
Rus ’ in the Catholic Sources 189

any effective royal protection, the network of St Knud’s guilds also fell apart.79
It is notable that in the first half of the 13th century the mainly Saxon and
Westphalian origin of the burghers of Riga can be identified from their names.80
Commercial ties undoubtedly also influenced relations between Rus’ and
Livonia. Occasional commercial conflicts with Novgorod at the beginning
of the 13th century evidently did not last long. In 1201 a minor conflict with
the “Varangians” was mentioned but quickly resolved.81 The merchants then
travelled overland (горою) wishing for peace, which could mean a route
through northern Estonia or equally from Riga via Pskov.82 Around 1205–07 the
Gotlanders’ enclave and the merchants using it must have received a privilege
from Prince Konstantin Vsevolodovich which is mentioned in later sources.83
Trade relations between Novgorod and the Baltic towns had become estab-
lished by this time, taking the form that would later characterize them. The
land route also gained in importance with the emergence of Livonia’s medi-
eval towns.84 Yet for the Roman curia these issues, as we have seen, remained
irrelevant. At the local level the ‘states’ of Livonia on the one hand and Pskov
and Novgorod on the other had emerged by the 1220s at the latest as essentially
equal military opponents who had to take account of the other side’s interests.85
Yet it has also been observed that there was no revival of the anti-Latin
polemical literature in Rus’ in the first half of the 13th century.86 In the 1230s
and 1240s talks about church union continued between Rome and the Empire
of Nicaea, as did the calls to crusade against the schismatics, but these referred
to the Greeks and Bulgaria and had no bearing on relations with Rus’, let alone

79  Hoffmann, “Anfänge,” pp. 17–18.

80  Soest, Lübeck, Visby, further Cologne, Münster, Dortmund, Deventer, Lippstadt, Goslar,
Bielefeld, Hamburg, Osnabrück etc. See Benninghoven, Rigas Entstehung, pp. 105–07,
165–68; cf. Hucker, “Imperiale Politik,” pp. 61–62.
81  N L1, pp. 45, 240; Rybina, Torgovlja, p. 107; Rennkamp, Studien, p. 65.
82  Goetz, Deutsch-Russische Handelsgeschichte, p. 37.
83  Rybina, Торговля, p. 108; Kattinger, Gotländische Genossenschaft, pp. 173–75. Kattinger’s
assertion that St Peter’s yard is not mentioned in the privilege of 1205/07 due to the par-
ticipation of German merchants in the crusades should be discarded because at this time
the German crusaders had not yet clashed with Novgorod.
84  Kattinger, Gotländische Genossenschaft, pp. 214–16, 220–27; Goetz, Deutsch-Russische
Handelsgeschichte, pp. 195–96, 198–99.
85  Benninghoven, Orden, p. 67; Dircks, “Krieg,” p. 126.
86  Mikhail Iu. Neborskii, “Традиции византииской антилатинской полемики на Руси.
Вторая половина ХIII—начало ХV века,” in Древняя Русь: Пересечение традиций, ed.
Vladimir V. Milkov (Moscow, 1997), pp. 379–80.
190 chapter 4

Livonia.87 Apart from the crusading letters of the 1240s mentioned above,
which were aimed at Denmark (see p. 169), there was also a number of papal
letters replying to various requests from the Teutonic Order and related to
the crusades in Prussia. But these too only concerned the pagans, not Rus’
or the schismatics. They concerned a major uprising that began in Prussia in
1242 and lasted until 1249. Innocent IV issued a succession of letters between
1243 and 1245 ordering the preaching of the crusade to aid the Teutonic Order
in this conflict.88

4.4 Papal Policy: Finland and Rus’

Rus’ had been depicted as an enemy since the 1220s and 1230s in some papal
documents concerning the region of Finland.89 Taking the number of buri-
als without grave goods as a measure of the degree of Christianization, the
south-western coast of Finland was converted at the end of the 12th century,
Tavastia from the early 13th century, and Savolax and Karelia at the turn of
the 13th and 14th centuries. This Christianization took place from the West,
not the East, and that applies also to the eastern locations of Savolax and
St Michael and to some extent even to Karelia.90 The spread of Christianity
and conquest of the region is documented only sparsely in the written sources.
For example, it is not clear when the so-called Tavastia crusade of Birger Jarl
took place, which has been dated to both 1239 and c. 1249 (see p. 150). There are
approximately only 300 known documents relating to Finland from the 12th to
14th centuries. Thirteen of them refer to the enemies of the Christian people

87  Norden, Papsttum, pp. 341–83. Against this view, Floria, У истоков, pp. 161–64. Cf. Acta
Honorii, no. 179b, p. 251.
88  D D 1/7, nos. 112, 114; PUB 1/1, nos. 146, 148, 150, 151, 169. Cf. Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, p. 270;
Busch, Nachgelassene Schriften, pp. 25–26; Maier, Preaching, pp. 77–78.
89  For Finland in sources from the 11th to 14th centuries, see Luigi De Anna, Conoscenza e
immagine della Finlandia e del settentrione nella cultura classico-medievale (Turku, 1988)
(Turun Yliopiston Julkaisuja B, 180), pp. 213–80.
90  Paula Purhonen, “East and West in Early Finnish Christianity,” in Müller-Wille, Rom und
Byzanz im Norden, vol. 1, pp. 377–85. See also Tarvel, “Dänische Ostseepolitik,” pp. 54–55;
Aleksandr I. Saksa, “Русь и Карела,” in Памятники старины. Концепции, открытия,
версии. Памяти Василия Д. Белецкого, ed. Sergei V. Beleckii, vol. 2 (St Petersburg-Pskov,
1997), pp. 230–31. Cf. Jukka Korpela, “Die Christianisierung der finno-ugrischen Peripherie
Europas: Zwei Theorien und unangenehme Tatsachen,“ in Salamon, Rome, Constantinople
and Newly-Converted Europe, vol. 1, pp. 275–85.
Rus ’ in the Catholic Sources 191

and of Finland.91 These enemies fall into three groups: the pagans in general,
the peoples of Finland and Karelia, and the Rutheni.92 Jukka Korpela has argued
that the expressions found in these sources should not be regarded as defini-
tive terms.93 However, this does not detract from the fact that the information
on which the letters are based originated from the lands of the Baltic, where it
was possible to draw distinctions between different ‘tribes’ and peoples. At the
same time, there is no doubt that Rus’ appears only sporadically in this list of
enemies. The terms inimici, infideles, and pagani used in these documents do
not refer to the schismatic Russians. Moreover, since these papal letters were
requested by a particular party, they also give expression to the information
supplied by that person. As such they must be placed in the specific political
context in question. Novgorod’s role in the relations between the inhabitants
of Finland Proper, the Tavastians, Karelians, and other Finnish peoples should
not be overestimated.
In January and February of 1229 Gregory IX issued a number of letters that
impinged on trade in the Baltic. The petitioner was the bishop of Finland
and the letters were addressed to the bishop of Linköping, the abbot of the
Cistercians on Gotland, the provost of Visby, the bishop of Riga, the cathedral
provost of Riga, the abbot of Dünamünde, the bishop of Lübeck, the dean of
Lübeck, and the abbot of the Benedictine monastery of St John in Lübeck.94
These letters were consequently dispatched to all the hubs of Baltic trade. They
relate that while the bishop of Finland was promulgating the name of the Lord
among the worshippers of idols, the Rutheni, who were nearby, repeatedly
attacked those who adopted the Catholic faith, causing considerable alarm
and inflicting great harm on them. The addressees were therefore to ensure
that merchants did not conduct any trade with the Russians, under threat of
ecclesiastical punishment, until they desisted from their persecution of newly
baptized Christians. A separate letter, again composed at the request of the
bishop of Finland, instructed the bishop of Linköping and the ecclesiastical
authorities on Gotland to ensure that the merchants of Gotland did not sell
any weapons, horses, ships or food to the pagans, the enemies of the Finnish
church, since this could harm the church.95 Such trade embargos against the
pagans had also been applied earlier in the Baltic. The exchange of goods
with non-Christians was partially prohibited by the church to the extent that

91  Selart, “Водь в западноевропейских источниках,” pp. 529–38.

92  Korpela, “Russian Threat,” pp. 162–63.
93  Korpela, “Russian Threat,” p. 167.
94  R EA, nos. 3–5; cf. nos. 1–2; ST 1, no. 75; LUB 3, no. 100a.
95  R EA, no. 7; ST 1, no. 76.
192 chapter 4

it might prove a military threat to Christians. Canon 24 of the Third Lateran

Council (1179) lists weapons, iron, and wood for ships among such forbidden
items. A similar list was reissued by Innocent III in his proclamation of the cru-
sade of 1213 and again two years later in the call to crusade at the Fourth Lateran
Council.96 The first similar order in northern Europe against pagans was issued
to Bishop Christian of Prussia by Pope Honorius III in 1218.97 Under Gregory IX
the list of banned goods also appears in those letters directed against the
pagans; in the letters referring to the Russians, trade was forbidden altogether,
but only as long as Rus’ continued to harm newly baptized Christians.98 This
ban was thus provoked by certain political activities by Rus’—in this specific
context, of Novgorod—not by its schismatic views. Nor does the embargo con-
ceal a ‘secret plan’ to annex Rus’.
Novgorod was indeed militarily active in Finland at this time. In 1227 Prince
Iaroslav Vsevolodovich went on a raid for plunder with the Novgorodians to
Tavastia. The Laurentian Chronicle mentions in this context that he performed
baptisms in Karelia.99 Given the practice in Livonia, where baptism also repre-
sented subordination to the secular power in question, this could be seen as an
application by the Russians of the Livonian model to Karelia. The Tavastians
responded the following year by attacking Ladoga, where they were met by
local warriors and the Ingrians. The Novgorodian army led by the prince rede-
ployed to the River Neva, but halted there because of emerging opposition
to Iaroslav.100 Pope Gregory’s letters from early 1229 may very well have been

96  Dekrete, p. 233, para. 24; pp. 269–79, para. 71.

97  For example, ST 1, no. 69; PUB vol. 1/1, no. 25. See also Mažeika, “Of Cabbages and Knights,”
p. 66.
98  Cf. for example Hehl, Kirche, p. 42.
99  Лаврентьевская летопись, p. 449: “Того ж лет княз крсти множство Корелъ мало не
все люди”. The Novgorod Chronicle mentions in the same year the campaign by the prince
in Tavastia, in which lots of booty was acquired, and the burning to death of four witches
in Novogorod: NL1, pp. 65, 270. John Lind takes the view that the notice about baptism
from the Laurentian Chronicle represents a later (14th century), unreliable addition. See
Lind, “The Russian Testament,” p. 204; John Lind, “De russiske krøniker som kilde til kon-
takter i østersøområdet,” Det 22. nordiske historikermøte Oslo 13.–18. august 1994. Rapport I:
Norden og Baltikum, ed. Aleksander Loit (Oslo, 1994), pp. 42–45. Nonetheless, politically
motivated baptism in one of Livonia’s neighbouring regions in the 1220s is indeed plau-
sible because there are several examples in Livonia itself, including of Russian princes.
100  N L1, pp. 65, 270. On the fighting in Karelia in the 13th and 14th centuries, see Heikki
Kirkinen, Karjala idan kultuuripiirissä. Bysantin ja venäjan yhteyksistä keskiajan
Karjalaan (Helsinki, 1963) (Historiallisia tutkimuksia 67), pp. 75–102; Shaskolskii, Борьба
Руси против крестоносной агрессии; idem, Борьба Руси за сохранение выхода к
Балтийскому морю в ХIV веке (Leningrad, 1987).
Rus ’ in the Catholic Sources 193

written in response to these hostilities. The bishop of Riga and the abbot of
Dünamünde were among the addressees in their capacity as spiritual dignitar-
ies of Riga as a centre of trade.101 It thus appears the intervention of the bishop
of Finland was the catalyst for this papal response.
On 24 November 1232 Pope Gregory IX sent an epistle to the Sword Brothers
in Livonia. He called upon the Order to protect a new plantation of the
Lord in Finland at the request of the bishop of Finland. The Russians are
described in the letter as “infidel”.102 Finland also fell under the area covered
by the legation of Baldwin of Aulne. It has been concluded on the basis of
this evidence that the bishop of Finland, Baldwin, and above all, the pope had
come up with the plan to subjugate Novgorod via Finland103 and that the “ene-
mies” mentioned in the sources relating to the crusade in Finland were none
other than the Russians. In fact this letter again reflects no more than Prince
Iaroslav’s Tavastian campaign of 1227.
The Russians are at least mentioned on one occasion as enemies of
Christianity in this letter.104 However, it should not be forgotten that the main
contemporary conflict was between the pagans and the Christians, in which
the Russians of Novgorod were only intermittently involved. Hence Rus’ cannot
be regarded as an enemy of the Finnish mission regardless of time and place
simply on the basis of this one letter. To consider the events in 13th-century
Karelia and its immediately neighbouring areas as a war between the Swedes
and the Russians would be to underestimate the Finnish peoples and overes-
timate the means at Novgorod’s disposal. If the expression rutheni is regarded,
moreover, in a ‘geopolitical’ sense, that is, as referring to the part of Karelia
dependent on Novgorod, it could equally include the pagans and hence
Karelia itself, for it took several centuries for Karelia to become Christian.105
The enduring confrontation between Sweden and Novgorod was only just

101  Cf. Korpela, “Russian Threat,” pp. 163–64. According to Korpela, Rus’ here is not a spe-
cific geographical designation, and the letters are related less to Finland as such than to
the entire Baltic region. Nevertheless it is precisely the bishop of Finland who appears
as the petitioner: “venerabilis frater noster Finlandensis episcopus nobis exposuit”. See
REA, no. 1.
102  R EA, no. 9; LUB 1, no. 128: “contra infideles ruthenos”. See also BGP, pp. 108–09, no. 38. Cf.
Lind, “Early Russian-Swedish Rivalry,” pp. 270, 289; Lind, “Bishop Thomas,” pp. 305–07;
Lind, “Order”.
103  Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, pp. 218–19; Vahtola, “Finnlands kirchenpolitische Verbin­
dungen,” p. 493; Jaakkola, Suomen varhaiskeskiaika, pp. 256–57; Pashuto, Внешняя
политика, pp. 240–41; Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси против крестоносной агрессии, p. 152.
104  See Krötzl, “Finnen,” p. 54; Korpela, “Russian Threat,” p. 164.
105  See Purhonen, “East and West,” pp. 385–86; Saksa, “Русь и Карела,” pp. 231–32.
194 chapter 4

beginning in the 1230s; it may in some sense be regarded as more serious from
the 1280s onwards. This shift had less to do with papal ‘policy’ than with the
spread of knightly culture from the Continent to Sweden, leading to the need
to conduct crusades there too and thus converting the existing conflict for
control of the pagan peoples of Finland into crusades. Any claims based on
the sources discussed in this section that there were plans to subjugate Rus’ in
the first half of the 13th century106 or that Rus’ posed a threat to the Catholic
church in Livonia and Finland107 must be viewed with great scepticism. Jukka
Korpela has concluded that in Finland from the 11th to the 13th centuries it is
not possible to identify either any perception of a danger posed by Rus’ or any
confrontation between the churches. The sources refer primarily to the pagans
as the enemies of Christians.108
It is always possible to explain any critical attitude towards Rus’ that occa-
sionally surfaces in the sources for north-eastern Europe in the first half of
the 13th century with reference to the political context. Political relations and
power politics determined the vocabulary used in the chronicles and papal
letters. The papal curia may very well have constructed an idea of Rus’ as a
schismatic land judging by these letters, but this information was not gathered
systematically and the number of relayed reports was small. No intention to
undertake crusades directly against Rus’ can be drawn from the sources from
this period. The possible papal initiative in relation to the legation of William
of Modena, to subject the church of Rus’ to papal authority, proved a unique,
one-off idea and is not evidence of the existence of a consistent policy.

106  For example, Pashuto, Внешняя политика, pp. 240–41; Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси против
крестоносной агрессии, pp. 147–157, 227–33.
107  Jaakkola, Suomen varhaiskeskiaika, pp. 220–23, 242–46; Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, p. 222;
Vahtola, “Finnlands kirchenpolitische Verbindungen,” p. 499; Erich Weise, Die Amtsgewalt
von Papst und Kaiser und die Ostmission besonders in der 1. Hälfte des 13. Jahrhunderts
(Marburg/Lahn, 1971) (Marburger Ostforschungen 31), pp. 66–69; Krötzl, “Finnen,”
pp. 52–54. For an overview of the historiography, see Korpela, “Russian Threat,” pp. 166–67.
108  Korpela, “Russian Threat,” pp. 168–72.
Part 2

∵
 chapter 5

Relations between Rus’ and Livonia under

Archbishop Albert Suerbeer (1245–73)

5.1 The Foundation of the Archbishopric of Riga

The central figure in relations between Livonia and Rus’ at the end of the 1240s
and during the 1250s was the archbishop of Riga, Albert Suerbeer (d. 1273). He
had been unsuccessful in his attempt to become bishop of Riga in 1229–30, and
was instead later appointed primate of Ireland and archbishop of Armagh in
1240. In 1245 Bishop Christian of Prussia died and at the turn of 1245–46 Albert
Suerbeer was appointed as his successor with the rank of archbishop. His title
stated that he was archbishop of Prussia, Livonia, and Estonia. However, Bishop
Christian had lost his possessions in Prussia to the Teutonic Order, with the
result that the new archbishop lacked any form of income, apart from which
there was no vacancy in Livonia. He was assigned the bishopric of Chiemsee
as a living in 1246 and the position of bishop of Lübeck in 1247, although in
this capacity he was the suffragan of the archbishop of Bremen. Thus although
Albert had extensive powers at his disposal during his episcopate, he lacked
the military strength to back them up and consequently his ability to exercise
real influence was slight.1
William of Modena had divided Prussia into four bishoprics in 1243: Culm,
Pomesania, Warmia, and Samland. Archbishop Albert inherited the conflict
between Bishop Christian and the Teutonic Order. The latter used its political
influence to try to stop the foundation of a strong ecclesiastical metropolitan
in Prussia. In 1249 Suerbeer promised not to locate his episcopal residence in
Prussia against the will of the Order.2 It was finally decided in 1251 to make
Riga the centre of the archbishopric. The territory of the former bishopric
of Semgallia was added to the bishopric of Riga. Suerbeer was in any case

1  Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, pp. 15–16; Martin Rohkohl, “Albert Suerbeer, Erzbischof von Livland,
Estland und Preußen,” Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Schleswig-Holsteinische Geschichte
47 (1917), 70–72; Kurt Forstreuter, “Die Fragen der Mission in Preußen von 1245 bis 1260,”
ZfO 9 (1960), 250–54; Kurt Forstreuter, “Die Gründung des Erzbistums Preussen 1245/1246,”
Jahrbuch der Albertus-Universität zu Königsberg/Pr. 10 (1960), 10–12; Herrmann, “Lübeck,”
pp. 29–30. See also Graßmann, “Lübeck,” p. 46.
2  Forstreuter, “Gründung,” pp. 12–18. See also LUB 1, nos. 208–09.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004284753_007

198 chapter 5

prevented from taking up residence in Riga until after the death of Bishop
Nicholas of Riga in 1253. Albert lost his office in Lübeck in 1253–54 as a result of
the reorganization of these ecclesiastical provinces.3
On 2 April 1246 Albert Suerbeer was appointed papal legate in Prussia,
Livonia, Estonia, Gotland, Holstein, and Rügen.4 The appointment as legate
may have served as a means to enable the archbishop, who had neither a fixed
residence nor income, to claim his living and the control of his suffragans. One
month later Innocent IV exhorted Albert in his capacity as legate also to act
with great energy in Rus’, where the churches had expressed the wish to join
the obedience of the Roman head of the church.5 The appointment of a legate
for Rus’ in 1246 was not unexpected. Contacts had been established between
the pope and the princes of Galicia; hopes that the church of Rus’ would
become subordinate to Rome could be taken seriously. Why Albert Suerbeer
in particular was appointed legate may have been due to the fact that, as
the successor to Bishop Christian of Prussia, he was considered to inherit the
latter’s involvement in Russian affairs. Another matter altogether is to what
degree the attempts by Innocent IV to achieve ecclesiastical union met with
local support.6
As already mentioned, Albert Suerbeer’s power as archbishop was defined
by his opposition to the strongest political power in his area of jurisdiction, the
Teutonic Order. It was also under pressure from the Order that Albert Suerbeer
forfeited his powers as legate in 1250. In 1254, however, Innocent IV announced
that Suerbeer had lost these powers only in Prussia, not in Livonia and Estonia,
or in Rus’.7

3  Fritz Schonebohm, “Die Besetzung der livländischen Bistümer bis zum Anfang des 14.
Jahrhunderts,” Mitt. Riga 20 (1910), 319–24; Rohkohl, “Albert Suerbeer,” pp. 73–87; Donner,
Kardinal Wilhelm, pp. 404–05; Forstreuter, “Gründung,” p. 15; Herrmann, “Lübeck,” pp. 47–48.
4  In 1244 William, the former bishop of Modena, and cardinal-bishop of Sabina since 1244,
was appointed papal legate for Livonia, Prussia, Estonia, Curonia, Finland, Gotland, Öland,
Semgallia, Lithuania, the Culm Land, the archbishopric of Gniezno, the bishoprics of Prague
and Olomouc, and the possessions of the duke of Austria. He did not travel to the area of his
legation, however, but stayed in Lyon. See Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm, pp. 283–87.
5  L UB 1, nos. 189, 191; cf. no. 291; HRM 1, no. 66; DPR, no. 14; Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, pp. 14–19;
Forstreuter, “Fragen,” p. 258.
6  Cf. Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, pp. 17–18; Paul Johansen, “Eine Riga-Wisby-Urkunde des 13.
Jahrhunderts,” Zeitschrift des Vereins für Lübeckische Geschichte und Alter­tumskunde 37
(1957), 101.
7  In 1247 the Teutonic Order obtained the appointment of Jacques Pantaléon, the future
Pope Urban IV (d. 1264), as legate in Poland, Pomerelia, and Prussia: LUB 1, nos. 214, 262, 291;
Relations between Rus ’ and Livonia 199

The foundation of the archbishopric of Riga fixed the terms of ecclesiasti-

cal government in Livonia and Prussia for the rest of the Middle Ages. The
combination of missionary bishops of uncertain hierarchical status and dio-
ceses with sometimes disputed borders was replaced with a firmer structure.
However, the attempts to continue the Catholic mission in Rus’ collapsed. The
position of Albert Suerbeer as papal legate proved ineffective in this highly
unstable political situation.

5.2 Polotsk, Livonia, and Lithuania

Sometime towards the mid-13th century Lithuania began to consolidate its

power under Grand Duke Mindaugas (d. 1263). This process was accompanied
by the rapid growth of Lithuanian military power and the first moves towards
territorial expansion in Russian territory. The enlargement of Lithuanian terri-
tory occurred through different means simultaneously, ranging from conquest
to the formation of alliances. The former princely houses who recognized the
supremacy of the Lithuanian grand dukes often retained power in the towns
of Rus’. However, Mindaugas’ consolidation of his power met with resis-
tance from Lithuanian rivals. Around the middle of the century this opposi-
tion was represented by Mindaugas’ nephews Tautvila (d. 1263) and Edivydas
(d. c. 1253). According to the Hypatian Chronicle, Mindaugas sent these dukes
together with his brother-in-law Duke Vykintas of Samogitia (d. c. 1253) to
attack Smolensk with the promise that “whatever you conquer you shall keep”.
When the three dukes had set out, Mindaugas sent his army after them to kill
them. Tautvila and Edivydas fled to Vladimir in Volhynia, where they took ref-
uge with their brother-in-law Daniil Romanovich and his brother Vasilko.8
Daniil and Vasilko then sent a message to the Polish princes that “it is the
right time for Christians to attack the pagans, since they are at war with one
another”, i.e. presumably a reference to the internal power struggle in Lithuania.
Although no help was forthcoming from Poland, Vykintas secured agreements
“with many Sudovians” and “with one half of the Samogitians” by means of gifts
and money. The “Germans in Riga” answered Daniil: “We will make peace with

PUB 1/1, nos. 195–201 282, 328; Schonebohm, “Besetzung,” pp. 319–24; Forstreuter, “Fragen,”
pp. 258–60.
8  Ипатьевская летопись, p. 815. Mykhailo Hrushevskyi (1866–1934) dates the event to approx-
imately the end of 1248, beginning of 1249. See Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, “Хронольоґія подїй
галицько-волинської лїтописи,” in Записки Наукового товариства імені Шевченка 1901,
3 (41), p. 35.
200 chapter 5

Vykintas on your account, even though he has killed many of our brothers”. The
Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order (немци братья) promised to send help
to Tautvila. A joint campaign by the escaped dukes, Volhynia, and Riga was
launched against Mindaugas during the course of which Tautvila with some of
Daniil’s troops (с полоном Даниловым) went to Riga, where he was received
with honour and baptized.9 Hence, a Christian coalition was formed against
Mindaugas, led by the pretender to the Lithuanian throne, Tautvila. In 1248 a
treaty was agreed in Langebrücke in southern Estonia, according to which the
lands beyond the Daugava, which were to be subjugated to Christianity, would
be equally divided between the archbishop of Riga, the bishop of Dorpat, and
the Teutonic Order, the cost of the construction of castles and towns borne
jointly, and hostages equally divided between the archbishop and the Order.10
This agreement should also probably be judged against the background of a
complex internal situation in Lithuania.
Mindaugas, who had learned that “the Teutonic Order (божии дворяне), the
bishop, and all the warriors of Riga” had given help to Tautvila, “secretly” got
in touch with the master of the Order, Andreas, sending him many valuable
gifts and money and promising him further gifts if he agreed to have Tautvila
killed or to expel him (ащь оубьеши и женеши Тевтивила). Andreas made the
baptism of Mindaugas a precondition of his help. The latter did indeed send
envoys to the pope and was later baptized. The anonymous Russian chronicler,
who belonged to Daniil’s milieu, complains about the master of the Order:

Oh woe! He blinded your eyes with gold and now he is going to do you
another injury. Mindaugas indeed sent the envoys to the pope and
received the baptism, [but] his baptism was feigned, he made sacrifices
in secret to his gods . . . he sacrificed to his gods and burned the dead and
clearly followed the pagan customs.11

9  Ипатьевская летопись, pp. 815–16. According to Hrushevskyi, “Хронольоґія,” p. 35,

Tautvila’s baptism may have taken place in 1250, but certainly before 1251. See also
Edvardas Gudavičius, Mindaugas (Vilnius, 1998), p. 336; idem, “Polityczny problem
królestwa Litewskiego w połowie XIII w.,” in Ekspansja niemieckich zakonów rycerskich
w strefie Bałtyku od XIII do połowy XVI wieku, ed. Marian Biskup (Toruń, 1990), pp. 65–66;
Krzysztof Stopka, “Próby chrystianizacji Litwy w latach 1248–1263,” Analecta cracoviensia
19 (1987), 13–14.
10  L UB 3, no. 200a. Cf. Taube, “Russische und litauische Fürsten,” pp. 408–09, 451, 463. In
1245 Bishop Henry of Ösel sought a rescript from the pope that would ban the selling of
weapons to the pagans. See Busch, Nachgelassene Schriften, p. 88, no. 2; LUB 1, no. 201.
11  Ипатьевская летопись, pp. 816–17.
Relations between Rus ’ and Livonia 201

Grand Duke Mindaugas of Lithuania and his wife Martha were baptized in
1251 and crowned two years later. For Mindaugas this step was necessary to
be able to obtain the political and military support he needed.12 The Teutonic
Order viewed Mindaugas’ baptism as the independent policy of the Livonian
branch of the Order and its master, Andreas von Felben. This must have been
contrary to the endeavours of the main leadership. Andreas von Felben was
therefore deposed in 1254 and replaced by Eberhard von Sayn as provincial
master. Behind this may have been the desire by the Prussian branch of the
Order to expand and consolidate its territory. A peace between Mindaugas and
Lithuania’s northern neighbour Livonia would not have favoured such aims.13
Yet Mindaugas had after all been baptized and crowned at the initiative of the
Teutonic Order and been put in touch with the pope through the mediation
of Andreas von Felben. Whereas for Mindaugas the issue was the power strug-
gle with Tautvila, for the Order what mattered was its rivalry with the arch-
bishop of Riga. Mindaugas was crowned king by Bishop Heidenreich of Culm
in 1253, and that same year Albert Suerbeer, in fulfilment of a papal instruction,
ordained a priest of the Teutonic Order, Christian, as bishop of Lithuania. The
archbishop received obedience from the new bishop and did not grant him
any exemption. The Order was nevertheless able to obtain a papal dispensa-
tion releasing Christian from this oath. At the same time an alternative bishop
of Lithuania, the Dominican Vitus, had also been ordained by Archbishop
Fulco of Gniezno. He had already given up attempts to reside in Lithuania by
1254.14 Mindaugas donated extensive landed property to the Teutonic Order

12  Zenonas Ivinskis, “Mindaugas und seine Krone,” ZfO 3 (1954), 373–75; Manfred Hellmann,
“Der Deutsche Orden und die Königskrönung des Mindaugas,” ZfO 3 (1954), 389; Alvydas
Nikžentaitis, “Die litauische Gesellschaft der vorchristlichen Zeit (13.–14. Jahrhundert)
zwischen Rom und Byzanz,” in Müller-Wille, Rom und Byzanz im Norden , vol. 2, pp. 116–17.
13  Hellmann, “Der Deutsche Orden und die Königskrönung,” pp. 389–94; Hellmann,
“Stellung,” p. 9; Wojtecki, “Zur Identität,” pp. 50–53. Cf. Rasa Mažeika, “When Cru­sader
and Pagan Agree: Conversion as a Point of Honour in the Baptism of King Min­dau­gas of
Lithuania (c. 1240–63),” in Murray, Crusade and Conversion, pp. 198–214.
14  Vetera monumenta Poloniae, nos. 101–06; AV, no. 67; LUB 1, nos. 252, 254–55, 272–73, 275;
LUB 6, no. 2733; LUR, nos. 656–60, 704–06, 752–54, 761–62; cf. no. 763; Ioannis Długossi
annales, vol. 4, pp. 126–27 (1259); Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, pp. 57–58; Ivinskis, “Mindaugas,”
p. 361; Forstreuter, “Fragen,” p. 262; Manfred Hellmann, “Die Päpste und Litauen,” in
Rabikauskas, La cristianizzazione della Lituania, pp. 38–41; Dircks, “Russisch-livländische
Beziehungen,” p. 28; Michał Giedroyć, “The Arrival of Christianity in Lithuania: Early
Contacts (Thirteenth Century),” OSP, New Series 18 (1985), 23; Stephen C. Rowell, Lithuania
Ascending. A Pagan Empire within East-Central Europe, 1295–1345 (Cambridge, 1994)
(Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 4th series 25), p. 135; Mažeika, “When
Crusader and Pagan Agree,” pp. 207–08; Stopka, “Próby chrystianizacji,” pp. 3–68.
202 chapter 5

and Bishop Christian of Lithuania, although these lands were actually in areas
not under his control,15 namely principally in Samogitia, Sudovia, and Selonia.
The granting of Selonia to the Order was simultaneously a measure aimed at
thwarting the claims of the archbishop of Riga in the same region.16
Mindaugas had thus succeeded in dividing the support sent to his enemies
from Livonia. “Andreas was to blame for the fact that the Lithuanians were
not baptized and for this reason the brothers of the Order (братья) [later]
deposed him from office,” narrates the Russian chronicler, who had a hostile
attitude towards Mindaugas. The Order proceeded to join Mindaugas’ side in
the military conflict. Around 1252 Tautvila lost the support he had been receiv-
ing until then in Samogitia and Sudovia, while Mindaugas for his part tried to
come to terms with Daniil.17 Finally Tautvila, Daniil, and Mindaugas were able
to reach a temporary reconciliation.
In 1262 Tautvila is mentioned as prince of Polotsk. Already in 1258 “the
Lithuanians together with the Polotskians” had captured the locality of
Voishchina, not far from Smolensk.18 It is impossible to determine with cer-
tainty when Tautvila became prince of Polotsk, whether already at the end of
the 1240s or not until during the course of the subsequent fighting.19 According
to the Hypatian Chronicle, Tautvila’s baptism in Riga took place c. 1250.
Therefore if he had already taken control of Polotsk before that, he must have
succeeded to the throne as a pagan. On the assumption that this is not feasible,
it has been suggested that Tautvila was baptized twice, first in the Orthodox
religion and then as a Catholic.20 However, as previously mentioned, we do not
know for certain whether he governed in Polotsk prior to his Rigan baptism.

15  See Gudavičius, Mindaugas, pp. 336–38.

16  P UB 1/2, nos. 39–40, 79; LUB 1, nos. 252, 255, 294, 308, 342, 363; cf. PUB 1/2, no. 106; BGP,
pp. 168–69; LUB 1, no. 354. See also Hermanni Chronicon, pp. 135–39; Ivinskis, “Mindaugas,”
p. 368; Mažeika, “When Crusader and Pagan Agree,” pp. 202–03.
17  Ипатьевская летопись, pp. 817–20.
18  NL1, pp. 82–83, 310–12.
19  Хроники: Литовская и Жмойтская, и Быховца. Летописи: Баркулабовская, Аверки и
Панцырного, ed. Nikolai N. Ulashchik (Moscow, 1975) (PSRL 32), pp. 26, 132; Ulashchik,
Введение, pp. 97–99. Cf. Stephen C. Rowell, “Between Lithuania and Ruś: Dovmont-
Timofey of Pskov, his Life and Cult,” OSP, New Series 25 (1992), 4; Ianin, Новгород
и Литва, p. 52. See Anton A. Gorskii, “Два “неудобных” факта из биографии
Александра Невского,” in Александр Невский и история России (Novgorod, 1996),
p. 73. Cf. Aleksandrov and Volodikhin, Борьба, pp. 24, 29. In the context of the marriage of
Aleksandr Iaroslavich a certain Prince Briacheslav of Polotsk is mentioned in 1239.
20  Giedroyć, “Arrival of Christianity in Lithuania: Early Contacts,” p. 13.
Relations between Rus ’ and Livonia 203

His double baptism is thus unlikely. It would seem highly unlikely as well that
a pagan could be recognized as prince in a Christian city.21
The Hypatian Chronicle first says that Tautvila had been baptized by the
“Rigans”. Later on, following the account of the baptism of Mindaugas, it says
that Tautvila was able to obtain the support of the bishop and provost of Riga
(пребощь Вирьжань).22 The rivalry surrounding the baptism highlights the
conflicts between the Rigan church and the Teutonic Order.23 Thus Tautvila’s
baptism is attributed to both Bishop Nicholas of Riga24 and Archbishop Albert
Suerbeer.25 However, since the baptism took place before 1251 it is reasonable
to assume that it was conducted by Nicholas given that Albert Suerbeer did not
arrive in Riga until 1253.
While Tautvila was consolidating his power in Polotsk in the 1250s, the bond
with the Rigan church he had established meant that Riga was able to lay claim
to ecclesiastical authority over Polotsk. This is described in later sources. In
the legal proceedings between the Teutonic Order and the Rigan church at the
beginning of the 14th century the Order is accused of being to blame for the
fact that Polotsk had renounced the Catholic faith it had once held. Henry,
the prior of the Cistercian monastery of Falkenau, had heard from a Cistercian
lay brother, who had been staying in Polotsk “at the time”, “and from many
other reliable men”, that the rex of Polotsk and his people had converted to
Christianity and that they had had bishops, prelates, and other clergy. But then
the brothers of the Teutonic Order had suppressed the people so harshly that

21  Where Stryjkowski, Kronika, vol. 1, p. 285 mentions the prince by the name of Theophila,
adding that he był ochrzczony w Ruską wiarę, this is evidently not the Orthodox name
at baptism of Tautvila, but a learned derivation of the prince’s pagan name and a cor-
responding inference about his religious denomination. Cf. Ammann, Kirchen­politische
Wandlungen, p. 273.
22  The cathedral provosts of Riga mentioned are: Arnold, 1239–45; anonymous, 1248;
Hermann, 1254–63. See Leonid Arbusow, “Livlands Geistlichkeit vom Ende des 12. bis ins
16. Jahrhundert,” Jahrbuch für Genealogie, Heraldik und Sphragistik 1900 (1902), 40.
23  Ivinskis, “Mindaugas,” p. 368; Giedroyć, “Arrival of Christianity in Lithuania: Early
Contacts,” p. 22. Cf. Hellmann, “Der Deutsche Orden und die Stadt Riga,” pp. 14–15.
24  Hellmann, Lettenland, p. 176; Hellmann, “Der Deutsche Orden und die Königskrö­
nung,” p. 389; Hellmann, “Päpste,” p. 38; Henadz Sahanovich, “Нямецкая каталіцкая
місія і Полацк у XIII стагоддзі,” in Полацк: карані нашага радавода. Полацкая
зямля як сацыякультурная прастора ўзнікнення і развіцця беларускага этнасу і
нацыянальнай дзяржаўнасці (Polotsk, 1996), p. 61; Gudavičius, “Polityczny problem,”
p. 66. Cf. Mažeika, “When Crusader and Pagan Agree,” p. 198.
25  Ivinskis, “Mindaugas,” p. 368; Dircks, “Russisch-livländische Beziehungen,” pp. 28–29;
Giedroyć, “Arrival of Christianity in Lithuania: Early Contacts,” p. 22.
204 chapter 5

they called on the pagans for help, and the latter and the brothers of the Order
drove the believers from the land, killed them, and took them prisoner. The
cathedrals were also destroyed in the aftermath.26 According to another ver-
sion, Polotsk was once ruled by a prince who converted to Christianity. Since
he had no legitimate heirs, however, he left the land to the Rigan church. It
was the Order’s fault that the land had been captured by the Lithuanians,
during which two cathedrals, Czelouiensis videlicet et Rutheniensis ecclesie con-
sistentes in regno predicto, had been destroyed.27 The Teutonic Order responded
to these accusations that Polotsk had always adhered to the Russian church.28
If it is true that the ruler of Polotsk converted to Christianity, it follows he
must have been a pagan and he must therefore be identified with Tautvila.29
Tautvila did in fact have at least one son whose legitimacy might be seen as
doubtful from the viewpoint of the Catholic church if, for example, he had
been born when his parents were still pagan. These affirmations were not
written down until over fifty years after Tautvila’s death, however. There are
nevertheless reports closer in time to the events of a Russian bishop as suf-
fragan of Albert Suerbeer: in 1255 Pope Alexander IV took the archbishop
and the bishoprics subordinate to him under his protection, namely of Ösel,
Dorpat, Curonia, Vironia, Culm, Warmia, Pomesania, Samland, Rutheniensis et
Wersoniensis.30
According to this source, the “Russian bishopric” was regarded quite unani-
mously as a Catholic bishopric of Polotsk or an entitlement to one.31 The bish-
opric of Vironia in the ecclesiastical province of Riga, which is mentioned in
the same list, was no more than an entitlement that could not be realized. The
list of bishoprics originated from Suerbeer’s milieu, not from the curia itself.

26  Das Zeugenverhör des Franciscus de Moliano (1312). Quellen zur Geschichte des Deutschen
Ordens, ed. August Seraphim (Königsberg, 1912), p. 27, witness VII, para. 14: “quod ille
ecclesie cathedrales . . . fuerunt postea destructe”.
27  Zeugenverhör, p. 169, supplement V, para. 14.
28  Zeugenverhör, p. 200, supplement IX, paras. 215–16. Cf. LUB 3, no. 1322.
29  Hellmann, Lettenland, p. 195; Dircks, “Russisch-livländische Beziehungen,” pp. 28–29.
30  L UB 1, nos. 282, 402; PUB 1/1, no. 317; LUR, no. 779; cf. no. 1090. The reading Wersovien[sem] is
also a possibility. Cf. “Archiepiscopatus Rigensis fuit per dominum Alexandrum papam IV
primo anno sui pontificatus de novo creatus; qui sequentes habet suffraganeos: Osiliensem,
Tarbatensem, Curoniensem, Wironiensem, Culmensem, Warmiensem, Pomezaniensem,
Sambiensem, Ruthenensem, Wersomensem.” cited in Die päpstlichen Kanzleiordnungen
von 1200–1500, ed. Michael Tangl (Innsbruck, 1894), p. 13 (1380s). See also Leonid Arbusow,
“Römischer Arbeitsbericht,” Latvijas Ūniversitātes Raksti 20 (1929), 492.
31  Ammann, Kirchenpolitische Wandlungen, p. 273; Hellmann, Lettenland, pp. 184–85;
Johansen, “Lettenland,” p. 110; Dircks, “Russisch-livländische Beziehungen,” pp. 28–29.
Relations between Rus ’ and Livonia 205

The Czelouiensis ecclesia referred to in the accusations against the Teutonic

Order must be the bishopric of Selonia, which was merged with the bishop-
ric of Riga in 1226.32 The Wersoniensis episcopatum referred to in this source
has been identified as Karschau, where the castle of Georgenburg was built.33
Wersoniensis and Czelouiensis ecclesia are never mentioned together in the
same text, however, making it more likely that they are actually both different
written forms of Seloniensis. It is not clear when Selonia, which is located on
the border between Lithuania and Polotsk, was integrated into the Livonian
state system. It was still in any case a scene of virtually continual military con-
frontations between Lithuania and the Teutonic Order at the end of the 13th
century. In the case of the location of the “Russian bishopric” mentioned in this
source, consideration could also be given to Galicia-Volhynia:34 If the Russian
bishop Gerhard, who was still alive in the 1250s, had ever had any links with
Bishop Christian of Prussia, this relationship would also have been inherited
by Albert Suerbeer. However, since the old Orthodox episcopal see was located
in Polotsk, it was that town that could be regarded as the see of a suffragan
of the archbishop of Livonia during its political alliance with Riga. Because at
the beginning of the 14th century Polotsk itself was mentioned as the location
of the Rutheniensis ecclesia, preference should also be given to localization in
Polotsk.
In 1263 King Mindaugas and both of his sons were assassinated in the
course of internal conflicts in Lithuania. The conspirators, Dovmont, Treniota,
and Tautvila, soon started fighting among themselves, resulting in the death
of Tautvila the same year. Tautvila’s son, whose name is not known, fled to
Novgorod. The new ruler in Polotsk was Duke Gerdenis of Nalsen. The circum-
stances of the change in power as well as the question of which rival powers
were involved in it remains unclear. Whereas the Rigan church later claimed
that the ruler of Polotsk, who had no legal heirs, had left his landed property
to the church, the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order in turn cited charters
regarding the donation of a territory in eastern Lettgallia to the Order in sup-
port of its case. In Riga a charter was drawn up on 28 December “when God
had been [in the world] for 1000 years and 200 years and 60 years and 4 years”

32  Zeugenverhör, p. 89, witness XVIII, para. 5; Johansen, “Lettenland,” p. 110. Cf. Hellmann,
Lettenland, pp. 185–86.
33  Johansen, “Lettenland,” p. 110. It has also been interpreted as an erroneous form of the
word Revaliensis. See Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, pp. 70, 144–46. On the foundation of
Georgenburg in 1259–60 (i.e. about five years after the list of bishoprics was recorded),
see Peter, Chronicon III.83 (80), pp. 95–96.
34  Cf. Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, p. 71.
206 chapter 5

(1264), in other words depending on whether 25 December (more likely) or

1 January is taken for the start of the year, either at the end of 1263 or the end
of 1264 according to the modern calendar.35 This charter documents the peace
concluded between the Livonian master of the Teutonic Order and the city of
Riga on the hand, and Polotsk and Vitebsk on the other hand. The charter was
issued in the name of Duke Gerdenis, who promised to waive his claims to
Lettgallia and “to the land that Prince Constantine (Костянтинъ) had given
to the master and his brothers by means of his sealed charter”. The Order for its
part promised not to bring any claim “to Rus’, which is called Polotsk”. Mutual
freedom of trade was also promised.36 Although the charter of Gerdenis is
written in Russian, it was drafted according to the Latin diplomatic code, and
even the date is given anno Domini. On 16 August 1264 Pope Urban IV, in addi-
tion to other privileges benefiting the Teutonic Order, confirmed the Order’s
right of possession to these estates, “which Constantine, the illustrious king of
the Russians . . . had donated to you . . . in his Russian realm”.37
Very different hypotheses have been proposed regarding the identity of
this Prince Konstantin.38 Polotsk had at one time indeed been ruled by Prince
Konstantin the Armless (Безруки), whose origins are unknown. He is named
in an “exhortation” written by the bishop of Tver, Simeon of Polotsk (d. 1289),
to a Polotsk prince of this name. Simeon himself is mentioned as bishop of
Tver for the first time in a document dating from the winter of 1271–72.39 His
“exhortation” describes a feast of Prince Konstantin of Polotsk during which
Bishop Simeon warned the prince against placing unjust bailiffs in office.40 It
transpires from this text that Simeon had been bishop of Polotsk prior to the
1270s while Konstantin was ruler. A reference to the 1260s is thus grounds for

35  See Bonnell, Russisch-liwländische Chronographie, chronology p. 76, commentary

pp. 91–92.
36  P G 1, no. 1; LUB 6, no. 3036. See also PG 3, pp. 112–17.
37  L UB 1, no. 380. Cf. LUB 1, no. 345 (1260), which in a protective privilege of Pope Alexander
IV for the Teutonic Order mentions its (future) possessions in Rus’. These allegedly came
from both normal donations and recent conquests from the Mongols.
38  Anti Selart, “Fürst Konstantin von Polock und die Geschichte Livlands im dritten Viertel
des 13. Jahrhunderts,” Forschungen zur baltischen Geschichte 1 (2006), 29–30.
39  “Наставление тверского епископа Семена,” in BLDR, vol. 5, p. 394; Vladimir A. Kuchkin,
“Особая редакция “Наказания” Симеона Тверского,” in Изучение русского языка и
источниковедение, ed. V. F. Dubrovina (Moscow, 1969), pp. 244–45; Anton A. Gorskii,
Русские земли в ХIII–ХIV веках. Пути политического развития (Moscow, 1996), p. 53.
40  “Наставление тверского епископа,” pp. 394–95.
Relations between Rus ’ and Livonia 207

identifying this prince with the Konstantin mentioned in the papal confirma-
tion of 1264.41
Konstantin is repeatedly mentioned in the sources from the Teutonic Order
in the 14th century. His name and his donation are associated with territorial
disputes between the archbishop of Riga and the Order in eastern Lettgallia,
near Lake Lubāns. This disagreement inscribes the prince’s name firmly in
the Order’s historical tradition.42 The donation is described in more detail
in the documents relating to the proceedings between the archbishop and the
Order over fishing rights in Lake Lubāns. The area covered by the Livonian
‘Donation of Constantine’ was thus the Order’s territory of eastern Lettgallia:
Rositten and Ludsen on the border with the principality of Polotsk. Therefore
an additional reason behind the documents from Duke Gerdenis and Urban IV
confirming the donation was the rivalry between the bishopric (and later arch-
bishopric) and the Order over the subjugation of Lettgallia.43
Before discussing the ‘subjugation’ of eastern Lettgallia one should first
define what is meant by the term in this context. The subjugation of a territory
in Livonia did not necessarily mean in every case the military conquest of the
territory. Rather, it signified bringing the previous balance of power into a new
framework, a process which often occurred gradually in which one dominant
player was replaced by another. The area comprising Catholicized Livonia in
the 13th century was a conglomerate of possessions connected through their
various interrelations and the territories adjoined to them.44
Control in south-eastern Lettgallia at the beginning of the 13th century was
evidently exercised by Polotsk to a greater or lesser degree. As early as 1226
a vassal of Bishop Albert of Riga, Theodoric of Kokenhusen, had laid claim
to lands there, making him a rival of the Sword Brothers. The papal legate
William of Modena had reached the following decision at the time: if the
Order should succeed in acquiring estates in Lettgallia of similar worth, it
would not have to share them with the bishop.45 Later, in the 15th century, this
region of Warka (evidently modern Varakļāni south of Lake Lubāns) was a fief

41  See Hellmann, Lettenland, pp. 201–05; Ekkehard Klug, “Das Fürstentum Tver’ (1247–1485).
Aufstieg, Selbstbehauptung und Niedergang,” Forschungen zur osteuro­päischen Geschichte
37 (1985), 54–56. The bishop Simeon Polot’skii is also mentioned in the sources in 1274
without noting the connection to Tver. See Памятники древне-русского канонического
права, pp. 83–84, no. 6. Cf. Gorskii, Русские земли, pp. 53, 106.
42  Die Statuten des Deutschen Ordens nach den ältesten Handschriften, ed. Max Perlbach
(Halle, 1890), p. 132, para. 11.
43  Selart, “Fürst Konstantin,” pp. 39–41.
44  See Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte des Grossgrundbesitzes,” pp. 57–58; Auns, “Acquisition”.
45  L UB 1, no. 84; LVA, no. 129.
208 chapter 5

of the house of Tiesenhausen, the heirs of Theodoric, despite being in the area
controlled by the Order rather than the archbishopric.46 In the 16th century
the Tiesenhausen family tradition claimed that its forefathers had taken pos-
session from the Russians of a lot of land on the border, particularly in the area
of Bersohn (about 40 km north-east of Kokenhusen), where the Schwaneburg
was later built, and had received it entirely from the archbishop as a fief.47 In
1256 the terra Warkunde, which was part of the territory of Gerzike, was granted
to the Order on the condition that the archbishop and his people would
not be prevented from fishing and that what already belonged to them should
also be left to them in future.48 Thus throughout the 13th century the interests
of the Rigan church in Lettgallia collided with those of the Order. This may
have led the archbishop to claim that the principality of Polotsk had been left
to the Rigan church. Its opponent, the Teutonic Order, supported his claims in
the form of the charters of the ‘Constantinian donation’. In the end, the Order
was more successful in Lettgallia in the 1260s.49
These scattered details create the impression that volatile relations of
power were at work in eastern Lettgallia, themselves accompanied by vola-
tile conditions in Polotsk after Tautvila’s death in 1263. With the help of Prince
Konstantin the Order defied the pretensions of the archbishop, although the
Rigan church later claimed that it had subjugated Polotsk to Catholicism
through Tautvila. Consequently, we could look for Konstantin among the
forces opposed to Tautvila—either in the former dynasty of Polotsk50 or pos-
sibly among the members of the princely house of Smolensk. If he is identical
with the individual mentioned by Bishop Simeon of Tver, then it follows he
must also have really ruled in Polotsk.
The confirmation charter issued by Gerdenis fits in generally with the politi-
cal situation of the 1260s. Duke Gerdenis of Nalsen governed in Polotsk until

46  L GU 1, nos. 554, 558.

47  Des Bannerherrn Heinrich von Tiesenhausen Schriften, p. 11; cf. p. 41. See also Laakmann,
“Zur Geschichte des Grossgrundbesitzes,” p. 60.
48  L UB 1, no. 288; LVA, no. 432; Hermanni Chronicon, p. 40. Cf. LUB 1, nos. 329, 330; LUB 2,
no. 968; Benninghoven, Orden, p. 455, no. 125; Fenske and Militzer, Ritterbrüder im livlän-
dischen Zweig, p. 318, no. 396.
49  See Stern, “Livlands Ostgrenze,” p. 234; Laakmann, “Zur Geschichte Heinrichs,” pp. 100–01;
Hellmann, Lettenland, pp. 183–84, 195–96; Friedrich Benninghoven, “Der livländische
Ordensmeister Konrad von Mandern,” Hamburger mittel- und ostdeutsche Forschungen 6
(1967), 153–54; Hellmann, “Der Deutsche Orden und die Stadt Riga,” p. 15. See also Gertrud
Mortensen, “Beiträge zur Kenntnis des nord­östlichen Mitteleuropa um 1400,” ZfO 9 (1960),
342–43.
50  Cf. Aleksandrov and Volodikhin, Борьба, pp. 35–36.
Relations between Rus ’ and Livonia 209

his death in 1267.51 He was subject to the authority of the Orthodox Grand
Duke Vaišelga of Lithuania. At this time, around 1265, a certain Iziaslav is also
mentioned as prince of Polotsk, who together with Prince Iziaslav of Vitebsk
was likewise subject to Vaišelga.52 Iziaslav and Konstantin were the names rep-
resented in the tradition of the local princely dynasty. The accusations later
levelled against the Teutonic Order, namely that it was guilty of destroying
the Catholic church in Polotsk, may possibly refer to the treaty between the
Order and Gerdenis, given that in it the Order recognized Gerdenis’ power in
exchange for Polotsk having waived its claims in Lettgallia. It remains unclear
whether the ‘Constantinian donation’ at the time the treaty was agreed was a
waiver renouncing territory where control had already been lost, the recogni-
tion of the feudal supremacy of the Order,53 or remuneration for the promised
help in claiming the throne. The political situation was ripe for the conclu-
sion of such a treaty immediately after Tautvila’s death in the winter of 1263–
64, when Konstantin may have represented the opposition against Tautvila
because the latter was an opponent of the Order. If the treaty contained the
agreement that Polotsk would be granted to Prince Konstantin and Lettgallia
to the Order, then both of these aspects could indeed only be implemented
essentially at the expense of the archbishop of Riga. Merely the fact that the
Order had the donation confirmed by the pope is evidence of a conflict with the
archbishop. One of the parties to the treaty between Gerdenis and the Order
was the city of Riga, which by the end of the 1260s at the latest acted in concert
with the Order against the archbishop.54 After the loss at the Battle of Durben
in 1260, when the army of the crusaders and the Livonian lords was defeated
by Lithuanians, Livonia and the Teutonic Order in particular found themselves

51  NL4, p. 236 (и Герденя оубиша); cf. NL1, pp. 84–85, 313–15; Ипатьевская летопись,
pp. 860–863. See Shtykhov, Древний Полоцк, p. 14; Giedroyć, “Arrival of Christianity in
Lithuania: Early Contacts,” p. 12; Rowell, Lithuania, p. 21. Cf. Aleksandrov and Volodikhin,
Борьба, pp. 36–37.
52  P G 1, no. 2; LUB 6, no. 3037; HUB 1, no. 616. See also Hellmann, Lettenland, p. 194; Gorskii,
Русские земли, p. 53. A sentence from the treaty discusses some transfer of property:
“Чего ся есме отступили въ Ризе, к тому вамъ не приискывати ни людеи, ни земли,
ни воды, ни борти” (translation: “you must not covet that which we [!] have renounced
in Riga, neither the people, the lands, the waters nor the honey trees”). This can thus be
seen as indirect proof of the authenticity of the treaty of Gerdenis and the ‘Constantinian
donation’.
53  Known as the feudum oblatum. Cf. a contemporary example in Perlbach, “Urkunden,”
pp. 17–18. See also LUB 3, nos. 1226–27.
54  Johansen, “Riga-Wisby-Urkunde,” pp. 102–03; Georg Berkholz, “Vermischte Bemerkungen
zu der vorstehenden Mitteilung Dr. Perlbach’s,” Mitt. Riga 13 (1886), pp. 33–36.
210 chapter 5

in a difficult position. In Lithuania internal conflicts broke out after the mur-
der of Mindaugas. It goes without saying that both Lithuanian and Livonian
parties were prepared to make potentially enormous concessions in order to
consolidate their faltering positions.55 The fact that the Gerdenis’ charter had
been drawn up in Riga following the model of a Latin charter indicates that the
Lithuanian dukes did not yet have their own chancery at the time.56
It is clear that the volatile conditions in the Daugava region, the change
of power in Polotsk, and the frequent warfare had an impact on trade. None­
theless, this does not permit us to speak of a breakdown in trade relations.
Their continuation is testified to in the trade treaties signed by Riga with
Smolensk, Polotsk, and Vitebsk, which guaranteed the freedom of movement
and trade by the merchants of both parties. Such treaties were concluded with
Polotsk and Vitebsk in 1263–64 and c. 1265 (i.e. sometime between 1264 and
1267).57 Likewise the 1229 Smolensk treaty was reconfirmed in this period by all
Smolensk princes after their ascension to the throne.58
The consolidation of the Lithuanian state in the middle of the 13th century
marked the arrival of a new player of strength in the politics of eastern Europe.
It extended its influence over neighbouring Russian principalities and con-
fronted the crusaders and the Teutonic Order in Livonia and Prussia. The polit-
ical alliances of pagan Lithuanian princes were often transacted in the form
of baptism. At the same time a ‘false’ religious denomination never prevented
cooperation when it proved profitable.

5.3 The Attempts at Church Union in South-Western Rus’ and the

Legation of Albert Suerbeer

One of the most studied aspects of the history of Rus’ in the 13th century is the
relationship of Prince and later King Daniil Romanovich of Galicia-Volhynia
to the church of Rome during the 1240s und 1250s. Daniil has particular

55  Cf. Hellmann, Lettenland, p. 198.

56  Benninghoven, “Der livländische Ordensmeister,” pp. 152–53. Cf. Hellmann, Lettenland,
pp. 197–200.
57  P G 1, nos. 1–2. See Leopold K. Goetz, Deutsch-Russische Handelsverträge des Mittelalters
(Hamburg, 1916) (Abhandlungen des Hamburgischen Kolonialinstituts 37. Reihe A:
Rechts- und Staatswissenschaften 6), pp. 327–29; Benninghoven, “Der livländische
Ordensmeister,” p. 153; Rennkamp, Studien, pp. 209–12.
58  Petrukhin, “О датировке списка А,” pp. 163–65; Gail Lenhoff and Janet Martin, “Smolensk
after the Mongol Invasions: a Reconstruction,” Die Welt der Slaven 59 (2014), 121–22.
Relations between Rus ’ and Livonia 211

s­ ignificance among Russian rulers of the 13th century as a crowned king, even
allowing for the fact that some Hungarian rulers had been crowned as kings
of ‘Rus’’(Galicia-Volhynia) even earlier. Daniil found himself in a difficult situ-
ation after the military campaigns of the Mongols in the 1240s, having been
forced to recognize their supremacy. By contrast, the peripheral situation of
the area under his control in Rus’ also enabled him to put up a certain amount
of resistance. In addition, he also had to protect himself from the claims to
power of the Polish princes and the Hungarian king, not to mention against
Lithuania.
One of the issues discussed at the Council of Lyon held in 1245 was the
fight against the Mongols, which became intertwined with the desire to send
missions to them. Another issue was the possible alternatives for overcom-
ing the schism. One of the participants at the council was a certain archiepis-
copus ruthenus nomine Petrus, who had been driven from his diocese by the
Mongols.59 Most probably he was an otherwise unknown Orthodox bishop of
Belgorod near Kiev.60 However, the main subject for discussion at the council
was the struggle against Emperor Frederick II. The interests of this conflict also
dictated the ultimately unsuccessful negotiations that took place between 1245
and 1254 between Innocent IV and the emperor of Nicaea, John III Doukas
Vatatzes (1221–54). This was not the only contact between the Greeks and the
papacy at the time.61 Before the Council of Lyon letters had been sent to the
Bulgarian tsar Kaliman Asen (1241–46) in March 1245, asking him to recognize
the pope as supreme leader of the church. In addition, the mendicant orders
were granted the right to send missions to various Muslim, pagan, and eastern
Christian peoples. At the same time, the clergy of the Orthodox countries of
the Balkans were urged to recognize the union of the churches.62
After the Mongol invasion, Prince Daniil Romanovich and his brother
Vasilko were able to reestablish their power in Galicia and Volhynia only with
great difficulty. Not until 1245 did Daniil defeat the army of his opponents
Prince Rostislav Mikhailovich of Galicia of the Chernigov dynasty, and his
allies King Béla IV of Hungary and Prince Bolesław the Chaste of Krakow at
the Battle of Jarosław. That same year Daniil had to undertake a journey to the

59  Ex annalibus Burtonensibus, ed. Reinhold Pauli, in MGH SS, vol. 27 (Hanover, 1885),
pp. 474–75; Matthaei Chronica, vol. 4, pp. 386–89; Dörrie, Drei Texte, pp. 187–94.
60  Anti Selart, “Архиепископ Петр и Лионский собор 1245 года,” Rossica Antiqua 2011, 1,
pp. 100–13.
61  Norden, Papsttum, pp. 360–80.
62  Potthast, Regesta, p. 985, no. 11613; Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam sacram illus-
trantia, nos. 362, 365.
212 chapter 5

Horde, where he recognized his dependence on the Mongol rulers. As a means

of reestablishing and consolidating his position, Daniil wanted to widen the
circle of his Western allies, and one of his new allies was the church of Rome.
In the context of the fight against the Mongols, Rus’ was regarded at the time of
the Council of Lyon as a Christian land just like Poland and Hungary,63 and the
Russians undoubtedly considered Christians.64 The rivals to the Romanovich
line from within the Chernigov dynasty must have also fostered contacts with
the curia,65 just as other Russian princes, for whom the fight against Mongol
supremacy was the most pressing concern of the day.
The vita of Innocent IV relates that at the Council of Lyon envoys were sent
to various peoples in an attempt to win them over to the faith. Among those
mentioned is Archbishop Albert of Livonia and Prussia, who had been sent to
the Russians in response to their request to the pope for a legate.66 The other
extant sources mention Albert as a legate in Rus’ somewhat later. However, a
delegation to the Mongol great khan had already set out from Lyon led by John
of Plano Carpini in April 1245. On its way through Poland the embassy stayed
with Duke Conrad of Masovia, where a meeting was held with Daniil’s brother
Prince Vasilko Romanovich, who happened to be staying also in Łęczyca. The
delegation, accompanied by the extremely helpful Prince Vasilko, continued
its journey to Rus’, where the Catholics held a meeting with the Orthodox bish-
ops of Volhynia. Plano Carpini delivered the papal letters in which the church
of Rus’ was exhorted to submit to the supremacy of Rome. Any decision in this
matter was deferred because Prince Daniil was just then making his way along
the Volga to Batu Khan.67 Carpini finally met Daniil in person in the river Don
region.68
On its way back from the Mongol capital at Karakorum, Plano Carpini’s
legation reached Batu Khan’s camp on the Volga at the beginning of May 1247.
A month later the legation met Daniil and Vasilko in Kiev, not returning to
Lyon (via Hungary) until the autumn. According to Carpini’s account of his

63  D PR, no. 11.

64  See Ex annalibus Burtonensibus, pp. 474–75; Matthaei Chronica, vol. 4, pp. 386–89;
Itinerarium Willelmi de Rubruc, in Sinica franciscana, vol. 1: Itinera et relationes fratrum
minorum saeculi XIII et XIV, ed. Anastasius van den Wyngaert (Quaracchi-Florence, 1929),
XIII.1, p. 195; DPR, no. 19.
65  V. I. Staviskii, “К анализу известий о Руси в “Истории монгалов” Плано Карпини в
свете ее археографической традиции,” in DG 1986 год, 1988, p. 201.
66  Vita Innocentii Papae IV. Ex MS. Bernardi Guidonis, in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ed.
Ludovicus A. Muratorius, vol. 3 (Mediolani, 1723), XVII.5, p. 592; cf. LUR, no. 579a.
67  Pian di Carpine, Storia dei mongoli IX.2–3, pp. 303–04.
68  Pian di Carpine, Storia dei mongoli IX.49, pp. 330–31.
Relations between Rus ’ and Livonia 213

travels, Daniil and Vasilko had declared that they wished to have the pope
as their lord and father and the holy church of Rome as their mother and
teacher. The princes also sent their letters and envoys back with Carpini to the
pope.69 The pope’s letters dated 27 August 1247 to Daniil and Vasilko may have
been in response to this meeting in June. In them the princes are addressed as
though they had joined the church of Rome. The pope takes them under his
protection from other rulers who showed no respect to Rome, but also from
“crusaders and other clerics”. Innocent IV granted the Russian bishops and
clergy permission to use leavened bread at communion and “to observe other
of their own rites that are not incompatible with the Catholic faith observed
by the church of Rome”.70 The very next day Archbishop Albert was granted
authority to appoint men born outside wedlock as priests and bishops in Rus’
and Prussia.71 In the Russian context this created a means of accepting Russian
clergy who were the children of Orthodox priests, who, from the point of view
of Rome and its doctrine of the celibacy of the priesthood, were illegitimate.
At the beginning of September the pope told Albert that Daniil did not wish to
die in sin and had therefore sent his envoys and letters to the pope. Innocent IV
ordered the legate to travel in person to Galicia and bring about the union
of the churches.72 Thus the reference in the vita of Innocent IV that at the
Council of Lyon Albert had been sent as legate to Rus’ at the request of the
Russians may have been connected precisely to this embassy. The princes of
Galicia-Volhynia were also provided with a series of privileges during the sub-
sequent months.73 They were advised to seek the help of the brothers of the
Teutonic Order in Prussia at the approach of the Mongol army.74 For Daniil
these privileges and offers of support signified the strengthening of his posi-
tion vis-à-vis both the Mongols and the king of Hungary as a claimant to power
in Galicia.75 Thus the policy towards Rus’ adopted by the curia in the 1240s was
part of the overall attempt to achieve the union of the churches and also part
of the fight against the Mongols, who were a constant preoccupation because

69  Pian di Carpine, Storia dei mongoli IX.48, p. 330. See Peter Jackson, “Medieval Christendom’s
Encounter with the Alien,” Historical Research 74 (2001), 351. Cf. Vetera monumenta his-
torica Hungariam sacram illustrantia, no. 442.
70  D PR, nos. 20–22; AV, nos. 53–55; HRM 1, nos. 67–69.
71  D PR, nos. 23–24; AV, nos. 56–57; HRM 1, nos. 70–71.
72  D PR, nos. 26–27; AV, no. 58; LUB 1, no. 195; HRM 1, nos. 72–73.
73  D PR, nos. 25, 28–29; AV, no. 59; HRM 1, no. 74. See also AV, no. 60; HRM 1, no. 75.
74  D PR, nos. 30–31; AV, nos. 65–66; PUB 1/1, no. 204; HRM 1, nos. 77, 79; Epistolae saeculi XIII,
vol. 1, no. 481. See also Forstreuter, “Zur Geschichte,” p. 298.
75  Gorskii, “Два “неудобных” факта,” pp. 66–67, 73.
214 chapter 5

of the real threat they posed to the Polish and Hungarian rulers.76 Daniil and
Vasilko were far from being the only Russian rulers to take seriously the pos-
sibility of obtaining help from the West against the Mongols. The activity of
the mendicant orders, whose members acted as preachers or at least were
entitled to do so, also extended as far as Rus’, paving the way for further contact
between Catholic powers and the Russian principalities.77
According to the Galician-Volhynian Chronicle, the pope sent a bishop “of
Beren’sk and Kamenec’” (пискупа Береньского и Каменецького) to Daniil
in connection with the talks taking place during 1246–48 to offer him the
royal crown.78 The chronicler says that the prince replied: “The army of the
Tatars does not cease its hostility to us, how can I accept the crown without
your help.”79 In the autumn of 1253 Daniil nonetheless allowed himself be
crowned—according to the account in the chronicle, this was at the insistence
of his mother and the Polish princes as well as thanks to the assurance of help
given by latter and the papal envoys. Daniil’s coronation acquires added sig-
nificance insofar as his rival Mindaugas, the ruler of Lithuania, was crowned in
the same year. The Old Russian chronicle relates:

He [Daniil] accepted the crown from God, from the church of the Holy
Apostle and the throne of Saint Peter, and from his father Pope Innocent
and all of his bishops. Innocent damned those who profaned the Greek
Orthodox faith and wanted to hold a council regarding the correct faith

76  Norden, Papsttum, p. 362: “The negotiations for union held between Innocent IV and the
Russian princes Alexander of Novgorod (1248) and Daniel of Halych (1247 et sqq.) . . . have
no bearing on the history of union with Byzantium”. Cf. also Boleslaw Szcześniak, “The
Mission of Giovanni de Plano Carpini and Benedict the Pole of Vratislavia to Halicz,”
Journal of Ecclesiastical History 7 (1956), 12–20.
77  Altaner, Dominikanermissionen, pp. 218–25; Pommerellisches Urkundenbuch, ed. Max
Perlbach (Danzig, 1882), no. 86; Bullarium Poloniae, nos. 405, 413; Vetera monumenta his-
torica Hungariam sacram illustrantia, no. 425; Brincken, Nationes, p. 143.
78  The place names cannot be clearly identified. Cammin in Pomerania was related to Albert
Suerbeer’s activity. In 1247 Cammin was considered a potential centre of his archbish-
opric (Epistolae saeculi XIII, vol. 2, no. 426). The bishop of Cammin during 1244–51 was
William (d. 1252). His not entirely legal election as bishop in 1246 was confirmed by Albert
Suerbeer on his way through Pomerania [Pommersches Urkundenbuch, vol. 6, ed. Otto
Heinemann (Stettin, 1907), no. 3928]. It appears possible based on William’s itinerary (see
Pommersches Urkundenbuch, vols. 1, 3, 6) that he was far away from Pomerania in 1246,
in the spring, summer and autumn of 1247, at the end of 1249, and 1250 until November.
“Bern” in Old Russian literature can stand for Verona.
79  Ипатьевская летопись, pp. 826–27. See also Vladimir T. Pashuto, Очерки по истории
Галицко-Волынской Руси (Moscow, 1950), p. 254.
Relations between Rus ’ and Livonia 215

and the union of the churches. Daniil accepted the crown from God in
the city of Drohiczyn.80

There is no doubt that the coronation is seen as honourable and legitimate by

the chronicler and that the pope—who indeed had granted permission for the
observation of the Greek rite—is regarded as a positive figure and as head of
the church. The Hypatian Chronicle proudly uses the word Король, “king”, in
relation to Daniil, a term which only appears very rarely in Russian literature.81
Daniil was crowned by the papal legate Abbot Opizo of the Benedictine mon-
astery of Mezzano Scotti (in the Trebbia valley, Italy). Meanwhile the negotia-
tions between the emperor of Nicaea, John Vatatzes, and the church of Rome
continued. Similarly the fact that the Russian metropolitan, Kirill, who had
previously been appointed to his office by Daniil, was ordained by the patri-
arch of Nicaea in 1247 need not have signified a hostile move against Rome.
During his journey Kirill also mediated in the conflicts between the prince of
Galicia and the king of Hungary.82
The course of events creates the impression that, although according to the
provisional plans Archbishop Albert should have been dealing with the mat-
ter of church union with Galicia, his name is not mentioned later on and the
mediation of ties with Galicia was taken over by the Polish church hierarchy.
Albert’s itinerary during the period from 1240 to 1250 is too full of gaps to pro-
vide any details of any possible journey to Volhynia or Galicia. In the summer
of 1246 he was in northern Germany, and in the second half of the summer of
1247, when he was entrusted with the task of bringing about the union with the
church of Galicia, he was in Lyon. Albert was once again in northern Germany
at the end of 1247. His presence in Lübeck from 1249 to 1253 has been shown,
although there are long interruptions in the evidence from late spring 1249
until autumn 1251, as well as in the first half of 1252.83 During this time he could
indeed have been occupied with the task entrusted him. Some scholars have

80  Ипатьевская летопись, p. 827. On the recognition of the Greek rite by the Catholics, see
Itinerarium Willelmi XI.1, pp. 191–92.
81  Nikolai F. Kotliar, “Галицко-Волынская летопись (источники, структура, жанровые и
идейные особенности),” in DG 1995 год, 1997, pp. 127–29.
82  Floria, У истоков, p. 163; Zoltán J. Kosztolnyik, Hungary in the Thirteenth Century (New
York, 1996) (East European Monographs 439), p. 203. Cf. Ammann, “Gedanken,” pp. 116–18;
Gorskii, “Два “неудобных” факта,” pp. 66–67, 73. The wife of King Béla IV was the daugh-
ter of the emperor of Nicaea, Theodoros Laskaris.
83  See LUR, nos. 550–51, 553, 574a, 579a, 585, 590, 607–08, 610, 613, 669, 671, 678–79, 701–02,
707; cf. no. 716.
216 chapter 5

concluded that he nevertheless did not actually embark on his legation.84 On

the other hand, there is some evidence that such a journey took place.85 The
15th-century chronicle of Jan Długosz narrates:

Pope Innocent IV sent Albert, the former bishop of Armagh, but who by
then had been appointed archbishop of Prussia, to the Russian prince
Daniil, exhorting him [Daniil] to obey the pope and the church of Rome.
The cunning and stubborn prince did not obey the apostolic [legate],
however, and acted towards the church of Rome not as a loyal disciple
but like an enemy, spurning the apostolic legate without deference.86

It would appear from this that Albert Suerbeer, or a vice-legate under him,
did in fact visit Daniil and Vasilko, but that this course of action did not lead
anywhere. The reasons for this could have been resistance to change from
the clergy of Rus’ or perhaps pressure from the Catholic clergy. The curia’s
attempts to organize a crusade against the Mongols87 were equally unsuc-
cessful, since they did not find the necessary acceptance in Western Europe.
Furthermore, Innocent IV died in 1254. He had advocated with great zeal the
submission of the Greek church.88 The failure of these attempts is shown by
the fact that the conquests of King Mindaugas in Rus’ were sanctioned by Pope
Alexander IV in 1255.89 Daniil was forced to recognize Mongol supremacy and
take part in their campaigns against Lithuania and in Polish territory. At the
instigation of the clergy of Moravia and Poland (the bishops of Olomouc and

84  Ammann, Kirchenpolitische Wandlungen, p. 258; cf. p. 260; Forstreuter, “Gründung,” p. 24;
Forstreuter, “Fragen,” p. 258; Hans Patze, “Der Frieden von Christburg vom Jahre 1249,”
Jahrbuch für die Geschichte Mittel- und Ostdeutschlands 7 (1958), 81.
85  Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, pp. 21–24; Forstreuter, Preußen, p. 26.
86  Ioannis Długossi annales, vol. 4, p. 68 (1249): “Innocentius Papa quartus Albertum
episcopum olim Armacanum, tunc vero in archiepiscopum Russie [!] promotum, ad
Danielem Russie ducem, obedienciam sibi et Ecclesie Romane ab eo prestatum iri requi-
rens [mittit]. Sed dux callidus et rebellis neque requisicioni apostolice paruit, neque se
fidum, sed hostem Ecclesie Romane egit legatumque apostolicum sine honore dimisit”.
See also Ioannis Długossi annales, vol. 4, pp. 57–58 (1246).
87  D PR, no. 32; HRM 1, no. 88; Vetera monumenta Poloniae, no. 107. The mediator of the infor-
mation about the Mongols is mentioned here as “our son in Christ, the prince from Rus’”.
See also LUB 1, no. 268; PUB 1/1, no. 289, which orders the preaching of the crusade against
the Mongols for Livonia, Estonia, and Prussia.
88  Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, pp. 135–36; Norden, Papsttum, pp. 359–78; Altaner, Dominika­
nermissionen, p. 223; Rhode, Ostgrenze, pp. 149–50.
89  H RM 1, no. 93; Vetera monumenta Poloniae, no. 123; PUB 1/1, no. 311. Cf. AV, no. 76.
Relations between Rus ’ and Livonia 217

Wrocław), Alexander IV warned Daniil in 1257 under threat of punishment to

submit to the church of Rome.90 At the same time, the politics of the princes of
Galicia remained closely tied to their Catholic neighbours. For example, Daniil
Romanovich, Duke Siemowit of Masovia (d. 1262), and the Teutonic Order in
Prussia acted together in the conquest of Sudovia in the 1250s.91 From the end
of the 1240s Daniil intervened in the struggle over the inheritance of Duke
Frederick II of Austria (d. 1246). The collaboration between King Béla IV of
Hungary and Daniil was forged during the course of this conflict. Daniil’s son
Lev married the daughter of Béla IV; his other son Roman married Gertrude
from the line of the dukes of Austria, although this marriage lasted only a short
time. This intervention embroiled Daniil and Roman in an unsuccessful war
with the other claimant to Austria, the then margrave of Moravia, Ottokar II
of Bohemia.92
Archbishop Albert Suerbeer was appointed papal legate with the intention
that he should bring about ecclesiastical union with Prince Daniil Romanovich.
However, this plan failed for several reasons. Suerbeer’s room for manoeuvre
was hampered by his weak position in Livonia and Prussia; Catholic Europe
never was able to realise the planned crusade against Mongols. However,
although Orthodox, Daniil actively participated in the politics of the Catholic
countries of the region.

90  D PR, nos. 34–35; AV, no. 85; HRM 1, no. 95. See also Vetera monumenta Poloniae, no. 142
(crusade “contra Licwanenses, Iacintiones, et alios paganos et scismaticos, qui terris
christianorum confines existunt”); cf. no. 143; AV no. 84; Ioannis Długossi annales, vol. 4,
pp. 153–55 (1266).
91  Their rivals in the conquest of the Sudovians were Casimir of Kujawy (d. 1267) and
Bolesław the Chaste of Krakow, who sent their own missionaries to the Sudovians
(PUB 1/2, no. 4; Vetera monumenta Poloniae, nos. 119, 142, 143; Stopka, “Próby chrystiani­zacji,”
pp. 53–60). The Sudovians were not finally conquered until 1278–83. See PUB 1/1, no. 298;
Forstreuter, Preußen, pp. 23–27; Bronisław Włodarski, “Problem jaćwiński w stosun­kach
polsko-ruskich,” Zapiski Historyczne 24 [1958–1959] (1959), issues 2–3, pp. 30–33; Vera I.
Matuzova, “Тевтонский орден во внешней политике князя Даниила Галицкого,”
in Dzhakson and Melnikova, Восточная Европа в исторической ретроспективе,
pp. 147–50. Cf. Ludat, Bistum Lebus, pp. 261–63; Bârlea, Konzile, pp. 64–65; Kotliar,
“Галицко-Волынская летопись,” p. 131.
92  Kosztolnyik, Hungary, pp. 201–06; Kotliar, “Галицко-Волынская летопись,” pp. 120–23;
Günther Stökl, Das Bild des Abendlandes in den altrussischen Chroniken (Cologne-
Opladen, 1965) (Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Forschung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen,
Geisteswissenschaften 124), pp. 26–29. The measures taken by the Moravian and Silesian
clergy against Daniil were motivated by the alliance between Daniil and Béla.
218 chapter 5

5.4 The Attempts at Church Union in Northern and North-Western Rus’

A series of papal letters relating to Rus’ were sent to various addressees on

3 May 1246. A missive to “all those in Rus’ who believe in Christ” said that “in
your land until now, not without bringing ruin upon [your] souls, the customs
and rites of the Greeks have been followed, who left the unity of the church for
reasons of superstition, which must be condemned.” However, since the pope
had now learned that the Russians were willing once again to obey the
Apostolic See, he was sending his legate, Archbishop Albert of Prussia and
Livonia, to Rus’:

a man particularly close to our heart, of seemly behaviour, blessed with

learning and famous of ripe counsel, who brings you the word of life and
publishes our will and that of our brothers. We have entrusted him with
the task of assuming the office of legate in your land.

A second letter with the same content was also sent to the “venerable Russian
prince”,93 who was also taken by the pope under his protection.94 The same day
the pope exhorted Archbishop Albert to act zealously in accordance with the
powers bestowed upon him as legate in Rus’,95 and granted him the authority to
appoint Latin bishops in Rus’ from the ranks of the Dominicans, Franciscans,
and other monastic orders, as well as from the secular clergy.96 To the afore-
mentioned prince were also sent, “with the same authority held by those sent
to the Tatars” (meaning Plano Carpini’s embassy), the Dominican Alexius and
“his companion, who had been with him in Bohemia”. They were entrusted
with the task of reporting on the journey to the prince.97
It has been suggested that these letters were addressed to Prince Daniil of
Galicia-Volhynia in view of the contacts between him and the papacy at the
time. This resulted in the hypothesis that for reasons of chronological consis-
tency the letters sent at the beginning of May 1246 must have been mediated
by a different, otherwise unknown embassy from that of Plano Carpini (see
p. 213),98 since he had already set out on his journey a year before. However,

93  D PR, no. 12; cf. no. 13; AV, no. 43; cf. no. 44; HRM 1, no. 65.
94  D PR, no. 16; HRM 1, no. 62.
95  D PR, no. 14; LUB 1, no. 191.
96  D PR, no. 15; LUB 1, no. 190. Cf. HRM 1, no. 61; Ramm, Папство, p. 163.
97  D PR, nos. 17–18; HRM 1, nos. 63–64. Cf. AV, no. 60; HRM 1, no. 75. See also Patze, “Frieden,”
pp. 80–81. The companion’s name was Henry.
98  Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, p. 20; Altaner, Dominikanermissionen, p. 221.
Relations between Rus ’ and Livonia 219

the letters of 3 May are not addressed to Daniil or Vasilko Romanovich, but to
the unnamed Russian prince or Russian Christians as a whole. The name of the
prince given as Joannes in the edition published by Aleksandr Turgenev is not
found in other editions.99
There are really no grounds for considering the rulers of Galicia as the recipi-
ents of the letter addressed to the unnamed prince. James Zatko takes the view
that the prince ‘John’ mentioned by Turgenev can be identified with Prince
Ivan Vsevolodovich of Starodub (d. 1247), the brother of Grand Prince Iaroslav
of Suzdal-Vladimir. The latter was travelling in Mongolia in 1246, making it pos-
sible that his younger brother was acting on his behalf in his absence in the
search for allies against the Mongols.100 Nonetheless, since Ivan Vsevolodovich
is a rather marginal figure in Russian history, another theory sees Aleksandr
Iaroslavich behind the name Joannes.101
In the 1240s resistance to Mongol supremacy continued in Rus’. Scholars have
occasionally discussed the existence of different approaches to the Mongols
taken by Russian princes, distinguishing between those who attempted to rebel
against the foreign domination by seeking support from the West and those
who adapted to the situation. However, there was certainly no such division in
the first decade following the campaigns led by Batu Khan. This was a period
in which the forms of new, post-conquest political organization in Rus’102 were
only at their early stages. It would be anachronistic to distinguish between a
party ‘disposed to the West’ and one ‘hostile to the West’. Any possible union
with the church of the popes was not an end itself for Russian princes, but
rather a means, just as the negotiations for union were for the Byzantine rulers.
There are therefore no grounds to divide Russian princes into a group hostile
to union (e.g. Aleksandr Iaroslavich) and one favourable to union (e.g. Daniil
Romanovich or Andrei Iaroslavich). What mattered was the significance of any
potential ally that might be gained through such contacts.
Grand Prince Iaroslav Vsevolodovich of Suzdal-Vladimir was sent to the
Horde by the new Mongol overlords in 1243 and again in 1245. On the first

99  H RM 1, no. 65; cf. DPR, no. 12; AV, no. 44. Cf. Potthast, Regesta, no. 12097.
100  Zatko, “Union,” pp. 41–43; Ramm, Папство, pp. 160–64. Cf. the unfounded attempts to
identify Joannes among the Daugava princes: Ammann, “Gedanken,” p. 120; Aleksandrov
and Volodikhin, Борьба, p. 24.
101  Patze, “Frieden,” p. 81.
102  Charles J. Halperin, The Tatar Yoke (Columbus/Ohio, 1986); Lur’e, Россия, pp. 121–30;
Vadim L. Egorov, “Александр Невский и Чингизиды,” in Отечественная история
1997, 2, pp. 48–58.
220 chapter 5

occasion he was recognized by Batu Khan as the foremost of Russian princes.103

In 1245 Iaroslav was sent by Batu on to Karakorum to the great khan, where
he was fatally poisoned on 30 September 1246. The poisoning is recounted by
John of Plano Carpini in his travel account, while Iaroslav’s violent death is
also mentioned in some Russian chronicles.104 According to Carpini, Iaroslav
was poisoned by the khan’s mother, Töregene, who ruled as regent during the
interregnum in the Horde that lasted from 1241 to 1246, when her son Güyüg
came to power (1246–48). When Carpini arrived at the great khan’s residence,
the dux Ierozlaus de Susdal Ruscie was also staying there. The grand prince was
called to the khan’s mother, who handed him something to drink, following
which Iaroslav, “the grand prince of part of Rus’ called Suzdal”, died seven days
later, so that everyone believed that he had been poisoned with the objective of
taking full possession of his land. The khan Güyüg then quickly sent envoys to
Rus’ to Iaroslav’s son Aleksandr, summoning Aleksandr to appear before him
to receive his father’s land from him. Aleksandr paid no heed to this invitation,
however, since everyone feared that if he appeared before the great khan, he
would either be killed or imprisoned forever.105 On his return journey Carpini
met a messenger from Iaroslav’s wife and from Batu Khan, who was on his way
to Iaroslav unaware that he had already died.106 It is possible therefore that
Batu and the great khan disagreed about the rulership of Rus’, making Iaroslav
the victim of court intrigues between the Mongols.107 Numerous Russian
princes and their envoys were travelling at the time between Rus’ and the cen-
tres of Mongol rule. On his way to central Asia Carpini met one of Iaroslav’s
sons108 at Batu’s court, possibly Aleksandr.109
On 23 January 1248 Pope Innocent IV sent a letter to Prince Aleksandr
Iaroslavich of Suzdal (duci Susdaliensi):

103  Лаврентьевская летопись, p. 470.

104  Лаврентьевская летопись, p. 523 (Suzdal Chronicle); Ипатьевская летопись, p. 808.
Cf. NL1, p. 304. See also Lur’e, Россия, p. 125.
105  Pian di Carpine, Storia dei mongoli IX.31, p. 319; IX.37 p. 323; IX.49, pp. 331–32. Cf. Begunov,
Памятник, pp. 174, 192. See also Христианский мир и “Великая монгольская империя”.
Материалы францисканской миссии 1245 года, ed. Aleksandr G. Iurchenko (St Peters­
burg, 2002), p. 93, para. 42.
106  Pian di Carpine, Storia dei mongoli IX.49, p. 331.
107  Cf. Vera I. Matuzova and Vladimir T. Pashuto, “Послание папы Иннокентия IV князю
Александру Невскому,” in Kahk and Vassar, Studia historica in honorem Hans Kruus,
pp. 134–35.
108  Pian di Carpine, Storia dei mongoli IX.49, pp. 331–32. Cf. Ипатьевская летопись,
pp. 806–09.
109  See NL1, p. 79; Лаврентьевская летопись, p. 471.
Relations between Rus ’ and Livonia 221

As we have learned from our ambassador to the Tatars, our penitentiary

John of Plano Carpini of the Order of Friars Minor, your father, wishing to
become a new man, with advice of his counsellor the knight Temer,
joined full of humility the obedience of his mother, the church of Rome,
through the hands of the same brother [Carpini]. The people would cer-
tainly have heard of this if such an unexpected and unfortunate death
had not taken him away.

The pope proceeded to exhort Aleksandr as Iaroslav’s “legitimate heir” together

with his people also to join the obedience of the church of Rome and the pope,
God’s representative on earth. The pope also recommended that when the
Mongols began to approach he should send a message to the Teutonic Order
in Livonia so that it could send him help.110 In the letters sent to Daniil and
Vasilko Romanovich shortly before in August 1247 the pope had also, as we
have seen, advised sending a request for help to the Order in Prussia.111 Carpini
had already returned by November of the previous year (1247) and presumably
would have informed Pope Innocent of the death of Iaroslav and the presumed
succession of his eldest son Aleksandr. It is thus feasible that contacts with
Aleksandr could have been established during the interim, as is suggested by
the emphasis placed on his role as Iaroslav’s legal heir. In 1247 Iaroslav was
succeeded by his brother Sviatoslav Vsevolodovich, who became grand prince
in line with the practice of succession according to age. This was challenged
by Iaroslav’s sons Aleksandr and Andrei Iaroslavich, both of whom travelled
to Batu Khan at the turn of 1247–48, and from there on to Karakorum. Andrei
returned in 1249, overthrew Sviatoslav, and himself assumed power in Vladimir,
while his older brother Aleksandr was promised power in Kiev, but actually
spent most of his time in Novgorod. Aleksandr’s remoteness from the centre of
power in Vladimir signified his defeat in the struggle between the brothers, in
which Andrei was able to strengthen his position further in 1250–51 by marry-
ing the daughter of Daniil Romanovich.112 The emphasis placed on Aleksandr’s
rights in the letter from the beginning of 1248 reflects in the first instance
the practice of inheritance from father to son that had become the norm in

110  H RM 1, no. 78; Arbusow, “Römischer Arbeitsbericht,” Latvijas Ūniversitātes Raksti 17 (1928),
326, no. 19.
111  See DPR, nos. 30–31; AV, nos. 65–66; PUB 1/1, no. 204; HRM 1, nos. 78–79. See also Forstreuter,
“Zur Geschichte,” pp. 298–99.
112  See John Fennell, “Andrej Jaroslavič and the Struggle for Power in 1252: An Investigation of
the Sources,” Russia mediaevalis 1 (1973), pp. 49–51; Fennell, Crisis, p. 106.
222 chapter 5

Western Europe, but may also indicate that the pope’s informant, (Carpini?)
was familiar with the power struggle in Rus’.
Had Iaroslav Vsevolodovich really agreed to join the union of the churches?
Carpini himself does not mention it in his travel account. According to a later
17th-century tradition, before his death at the Horde Iaroslav is even supposed
to have joined the Third Order of St Francis (the Tertiaries).113 The situation of
the grand prince before his poisoning must have been truly desperate—did
his promise even immediately precede his death? In such an extreme situa-
tion any hope of receiving aid would appear acceptable as a means of rescue.
Even the fundamental recognition of Rome’s ecclesiastical supremacy may be
considered a possibility during the period in which the traditional state sys-
tem of Rus’ had collapsed. On the other hand, difficulties in communication
or confusing the desire with the reality may also have played a role. Just as
baptism and the subservience it entailed was understood in a political sense
in eastern Europe, so it was possible to infer from a Russian prince’s desire
to enter into alliances and coalitions that he wished to submit himself to the
church of Rome.
By the time this letter from Innocent IV would have reached Rus’, assuming
it ever did, Andrei and Aleksandr had left the country.114 Another papal mis-
sive to Prince Aleksandr of Novgorod is dated 15 September 1248. From this it
emerges that the pope had learned through the agency of his apostolic leg-
ate, the archbishop of Prussia, of Aleksandr’s wish and agreement to recognize
the pope as head of the church and to build a cathedral in his city of Pskov
as a sign of this commitment. The pope also exhorted Aleksandr to receive
the archbishop, who had wished to visit him in person, with honour.115 Based
on the premise that Aleksandr Iaroslavich always and without qualification
treated the church of Rome and its representatives disparagingly, scholars
have proposed various theories that allow them to interpret this document in

113  Annalium ecclesiasticorum post . . . Caesarem Baronium . . . authore Abrahamo Bzovio . . . 

vol. 13 (Coloniae Agrippinae, 1621), p. 539: “paulo enim post, quam a F. Ioanne Plano
Carpinate, ad conuertendos Tartaros ex Concilio Lugdunensi a sede Apostolica desti-
nato, habitum religionis & poenitentiae instituti pp. Francisci suscepisset, & abdicato
saeculo magnos profectus in disciplina regulari & sanctitate fecisset Iaroslaus senex, non
minus cito quam feliciter mortis euentus eum de saeculo subduxerat”. See also Georgii
Roshko, “Иннокентий IV и угроза татаро-монгольского нашествия. Послания Папы
Римского Даниилу Галицкому и Александру Невскому,” Символ 20 (1988), 104–06.
114  Gorskii, “Два “неудобных” факта,” p. 67.
115  “Innocentius IV . . . Alexandro Illustri Regi Nogardie . . . in Pleskowe Civitate tua latinorum
ecclesiam erigere cathedralem”: Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, pp. 174–75, no. 5; Vetera monu-
menta Poloniae, no. 96; Hildebrand, Livonica, p. 22.
Relations between Rus ’ and Livonia 223

such a way as to explain away its reference to Aleksandr. Departing from the
visual similarity between Pleskowe (Pskov) and Ploscowe (Polotsk), “Aleksandr”
here has been identified with Prince Tautvila of Polotsk116 or Prince Iaroslav
Vladimirovich, who laid claim to Pskov.117 Such theories cannot be sustained,
however.118 Pskov had surrendered to Aleksandr before the Battle of the Ice
in 1242 and at that time Aleksandr was also governing as prince of Novgorod.
The mediation role of Archbishop Albert Suerbeer, who had not yet been sent
to Livonia, makes it doubtful that the letter bore any direct relation to that
of January, particularly when one takes into consideration the time needed
to cover long distances.119 It may indeed have been a response to Aleksandr’s
reaction, but could also be a separate answer to other reports apart from those
of Carpini. In the September letter there is, moreover, no reference to Iaroslav
Vsevolodovich and his promise to recognize obedience to the pope. The exis-
tence of two separate communications between the pope and Aleksandr
Iaroslavich nonetheless demonstrates the prince’s intention of looking for
allies in Livonia and Prussia. Under the treaty dated 3 October 1248 agreed in
Langebrücke under the auspices of Albert Suerbeer’s vice-legate, the former
Cistercian abbot Nicholas of Dargun, the principality of Pskov was divided
between the bishop of Dorpat and the Teutonic Order. This had allegedly been
donated by the principality’s heir, Prince Ghereslawus, to the church of Dorpat
(see p. 165).120 This confirmation points to the continuing claims of the Order
and the bishopric of Dorpat to Pskov. However, it is unclear how this relates to
the archbishop of Riga’s policy and his hope of founding a bishopric in Pskov.121
There are no later references to a Catholic bishopric in Pskov in the extant
sources. But the vita of Aleksandr Iaroslavich does contain an account of
the dismissal of papal envoys. This immediately succeeds an episode placed
under the year 1252, although the chronology of the hagiographic text is not

116  Taube, “Russische und litauische Fürsten,” p. 406; Taube, “Internationale und kirchenpoli-
tische Wandlungen,” p. 38; Hellmann, Lettenland, pp. 176–77; Ammann, Kirchenpolitische
Wandlungen, pp. 271–74; cf. Ammann, “Gedanken,” p. 118; Sahanovich, “Нямецкая
каталіцкая місія,” p. 61.
117  Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, pp. 24–26, 174.
118  Gorskii, “Два “неудобных” факта,” pp. 64–66. See also Zatko, “Union,” pp. 49–51; Ramm,
Папство, p. 165; Winter, Russland, pp. 99–100; Bârlea, Konzile, pp. 63–64.
119  Cf. Gorskii, “Два “неудобных” факта,” p. 64, Nazarova, “Псков и Ливония,” pp. 598–600.
120  L UB 3, no. 200a; Schirren, Verzeichniss, p. 2; p. 4, no. 38; p. 129, no. 67.
121  Cf. Hellmann, Lettenland, p. 178. It should also be mentioned here that Pskov endeavoured
continually throughout the 13th to 15th centuries to rid itself of Novgorod’s episcopal con-
trol and establish its own bishopric. See Prinz-aus der Wiesche, Die Russisch-Orthodoxe
Kirche, pp. 76–120.
224 chapter 5

always reliable. According to the story, the pope, who had heard of Aleksandr’s
honour and fame as well as the greatness of his land, chose the two most intel-
ligent of his twelve cardinals, namely Agald122 and Gemont, to send to him to
discuss the Word of God. But the prince made known that his people “already
knew everything for themselves and would not accept their doctrine”, upon
which the envoys departed.123 The form of the names does not allow us to
identify the envoys.124 The later Russian chronicles also date the event to 1252;125
but this derives from the fact that the text of the vita was integrated section by
section within the text of the chronicles, making their chronology unreliable.
The dismissal of the embassy may have occurred at the end of the 1240s or start
of the 1250s, when Aleksandr’s position was already sufficiently stable and he
was no longer reliant on the support or goodwill of Livonia.126
While Andrei Iaroslavich had come to power in Vladimir, his brother
Aleksandr travelled to the Horde in 1252. The same year a Mongol army led
by Nevrui attacked Andrei at the same time as another army attacked Daniil
Romanovich. Andrei and his younger brother Iaroslav were defeated in the
battle. Andrei fled, enabling Aleksandr to secure the throne of grand prince of
Vladimir. The oldest sources agree that Andrei escaped overseas to Sweden.127
The Laurentian Chronicle relates that Andrei, his consort, and their entourage
fled “to an unknown land”.128 The Sofia First Chronicle is more precise when
it says that he went to Novgorod and from there to Pskov, where he waited for
his princess. From Pskov, Andrei made his way to Reval and then on to Sweden,
where he was received by the “Swedish master” (местерь же Свеискы). He

122  Агалд, also: Галд, Гаад.

123  Begunov, Памятник, pp. 193, 175–76.
124  Cf. Matuzova and Nazarova, Крестоносцы, pp. 329–30.
125  S L1, pp. 328–29; NL1, pp. 305–06.
126  Ammann, “Gedanken,” p. 120; Matuzova and Pashuto, “Послание,” p. 136; Fennell, Crisis,
p. 113; Gorskii, “Два “неудобных” факта,” pp. 68–69. John Lind, based on the papal letters
to Aleksandr Iaroslavich in 1248, refers to an anti-Mongol coalition of Aleksandr, Andrei,
and Daniil Romanovich during 1248–52 in alliance with the Catholic church and the
king of Norway. See Jensen, Jensen and Lind, “Communicating,” pp. 13–14; John H. Lind,
“Mobilisation of the European Periphery against the Mongols. Innocent IV’s All-European
Policy in its Baltic Context—A Recantation,” in Staecker, Reception of Medieval Europe,
pp. 75–90.
127   Mikhail N. Tikhomirov, “Забытые и неизвестные произведения русской пись-
менности,” in Археографический ежегодник за 1960 год, 1962, 239; Лаврентьевская
летопись, p. 524.
128  Лаврентьевская летопись, p. 473.
Relations between Rus ’ and Livonia 225

then also brought the princess from Reval over to Sweden.129 Conversely, the
Novgorod tradition of the 15th century reports that Andrei was killed in battle
by “Germans” or “Chuds”.130 This is contradicted by the fact that he is men-
tioned as prince of Gorodets and Nizhny Novgorod in 1256 and his death in
1264 as “Andrei of Suzdal” is documented.131 The presence in Sweden of Prince
Andrei of Suzdal as the same brother of Prince Aleksandr of Novgorod who
had fled from the “Tatars” is also mentioned in the saga of King Haakon IV
Haakonsson of Norway, written in Norway by the Icelandic author Sturla
Þórðarson (1214–84) c. 1264–65.132
Under the year 1253 the Novgorod Chronicle mentions a campaign by the
Lithuanians which was repulsed by Prince Vasilii Aleksandrovich together with
the Novgorodians. It follows that Aleksandr, who had settled in Vladimir, had
installed his minor son Vasilii as his representative in Novgorod. Directly after
this the chronicle narrates that the Germans attacked Pskov the same year, but
retreated when an auxiliary army arrived from Novgorod. The Novgorodians
then returned to Novgorod and from there crossed beyond the Narva River,
where together with the Karelians they plundered the land. After this cam-
paign, another joint campaign was undertaken by Pskov and Novgorod dur-
ing the course of which the Livonian army was defeated, “for they began it
against themselves, the accursed transgressors of right,” observes the chroni-
cler. Livonia then sent embassies to Pskov and Novgorod to sue for peace.133
Who took the initiative to attack Pskov? If one goes back to the Langebrücke
treaty of 1248 confirming the division of “Iaroslav’s inheritance”, possible candi-
dates would appear to be the bishop of Dorpat and the Livonian branch of the
Teutonic Order. Albert Suerbeer himself had been in Livonia since August 1253
at the latest. The counteroffensive in an area not defined more precisely than
“beyond the Narva River” suggests that northern Estonia may have been linked
to this campaign. By 1253 Albert Suerbeer’s hopes of extending his power by
means of ecclesiastical union with Pskov had vanished, making the attempt
to take control of the city by force seem plausible. Meanwhile, the Lithuanian

129  S L1, pp. 327–28.

130  S L1, p. 328; NL1, p. 304; cf. NL4, p. 230. See also Fennell, “Andrej Jaroslavič,” pp. 55, 61.
131  Лаврентьевская летопись, pp. 524; Симеоновская летопись, p. 72. Cf. Fennell, Crisis,
pp. 112, 116.
132  Icelandic sagas and other historical documents relating to the settlements and descents of
the Northmen on the Britsih isles, vol. 2: Hakonar saga, and a fragment of Magnus saga,
with appendices, ed. Gudbrand Vigfusson, London 1887 (Rerum britannicarum medii aevi
scriptores 88), p. 275, para. 280: “ Þar var ok með jarli Andrés konungr af Sursdölum bróðir
Alexandrs konungs af Hólmgarði; hann hafði flýit austan fyrir Tattarum”.
133  N L1, pp. 80, 307.
226 chapter 5

king Mindaugas and the Teutonic Order in Livonia considered themselves

allies. This makes it justified to speak of the Lithuanian and Livonian cam-
paigns as coordinated.134 Bernhard Dircks takes the view that “Lithuanians”
should be understood in this case as a campaign by Tautvila of Polotsk under-
taken not with the Order, but the archbishop of Riga and the bishop of Dorpat.135
The Lithuanian connection remains no more than hypothetical, however.
A reprisal action in Danish territory suggests the participation of vassals from
there, just as these often took part in the campaigns of the Teutonic Order.136
The sources certainly do not mention additional efforts at church union in
relation to Pskov and Novgorod.
In the winter of 1253–54 Aleksandr’s brother Prince Iaroslav Iaroslavich
fled from north-eastern Rus’ to Pskov, where he became prince.137 The fol-
lowing year Iaroslav was summoned to Novgorod to replace the ousted Vasilii
Aleksandrovich as prince. This represented a change of power in Novgorod,
so that the fact that Iaroslav settled in Pskov in itself could possibly be seen as
a hostile manoeuvre towards Aleksandr Iaroslavich. Aleksandr’s army arrived
in Novgorod in 1255, the city was forced to submit again to the grand prince
in return for some concessions. Iaroslav afterwards settled for some time in
Ladoga.138 Aleksandr’s authority in Novgorod remained unstable, however. In
1257, when Mongol officials were conducting a census in Rus’ for tax collec-
tion purposes, Aleksandr was in their service and helped them extend the tax
collection campaign to Novgorod as well. As a consequence of rumours about
this tribute, unrest broke out in Novgorod, and against his father’s wishes
Aleksandr’s son Vasilii, who had since returned to Novgorod, also rebelled
and fled to Pskov. When the grand prince and the Mongol officials arrived in
Novgorod, they were not paid any tribute, nor was Aleksandr in a position to
force the city to do so. He therefore arrested his son in Pskov and sent him
to north-eastern Rus’, imposing a punishment on Vasilii’s retinue, which had
apparently been responsible for the conduct of the minor prince. The follow-
ing year the grand prince, accompanied by a number of other princes, visited
the Horde, and then in the winter of 1259–60 he attempted once again to force
Novgorod to pay tribute, this time accompanied by Andrei Iaroslavich, Prince

134  Stern, “Dorpat-Pleskauer Kämpfe,” p. 93.

135  Dircks, “Russisch-livländische Beziehungen,” p. 29; cf. Hellmann, Lettenland, p. 183.
136  For example, LR, lines 2369, 2967–68, 3058–59, 5319–20, 6130–32, 6303–04, 6734–45, 7681–
82, 7823–24, 8295–99, 9529–30; cf. line 9921.
137  N L1, pp. 80, 307.
138  Лаврентьевская летопись, p. 474. See Klug, “Fürstentum Tver’,” pp. 47–48; Fennell,
Crisis, p. 111.
Relations between Rus ’ and Livonia 227

Boris Vasilkovich of Rostov (d. 1277), and the Mongol officials. Despite the
city having declared its willingness to pay the required tribute, riots broke out
during the collection. The operation was still successful to a certain degree,
because Aleksandr’s minor son Dmitrii was installed as prince in Novgorod.139
Under the year 1262 the Novgorod Chronicle describes fortification works
but then a peace concluded with Lithuania. In the autumn a major offensive
was launched against Dorpat. Apart from the Novgorodian army of Aleksandr’s
son Dmitrii, the contingent included his son-in-law Konstantin Rostislavich
from the Smolensk dynasty, his brother Iaroslav Iaroslavich, and Prince
Tautvila of Polotsk with the Polotskians and the Lithuanians. Dorpat was cap-
tured, a large amount of booty was collected, and many people killed; “but the
power of the Holy Cross and of St. Sophia always overthrows those who are
wrong. And so this town, its strength was for nothing, but by the aid of God
it was taken,” relates the chronicle rather gloatingly.140 As can be seen from
the account of the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, however, only the town, not
the castle, was seized. It appears that King Mindaugas of Lithuania and Prince
Tautvila of Polotsk had come to an arrangement in the meantime, since the
Rhymed Chronicle links the campaign of Rus’ against Dorpat with the alli-
ance between King Mindaugas and Grand Prince Aleksandr.141 Mindaugas
had previously, according to the Rhymed Chronicle, renounced Christianity
under pressure from the Samogitians, which represented an abandonment of
the political alliance with the Order.142 In 1259 a revolt by the Semgallians had
broken out, while in 1260 the Livonian army suffered a devastating defeat by
the Samogitians at the Battle of Durben in Curonia. The following year the
Samogitians invaded Livonia itself and a rebellion erupted in Ösel. At the end
of 1261 and in 1262 Mindaugas openly renounced the alliance with the Order

139  N L1, pp. 82–83, 309–11; Лаврентьевская летопись, pp. 475–76; cf. p. 524; Fennell, Crisis,
pp. 116–17; Lur’e, Россия, pp. 108–09; Anna L. Khoroshkevich, “Монголы и Новгород в
50-е годы ХIII в. (по данным берестяных грамот nr. 215 и 218),” in История и культура
древнерусского города, ed. German A. Fedorov-Davydov et al. (Moscow, 1989), pp. 69–73.
140  N L1, pp. 83, 311–12; Begunov, Памятник, p. 193. Dmitrii was a minor and had the role of
army leader only in a symbolic sense. See Klug, “Fürstentum Tver’,” p. 48.
141  L R, lines 6462–69. See also LUB 1, no. 216; Evgeniia L. Nazarova, “К вопросу о литовско-
русском союзе 1262 г.,” in Староладожский сборник, ed. Adrian A. Selin (St Petersburg-
Staraja Ladoga, 1998), pp. 12–19. In Nazarova, “Псков и Ливония,” p. 601 and Matuzova
and Nazarova, Крестоносцы, pp. 245–46, 335, it is pointed out that the sources do not
document the presence of Pskovians at Dorpat in 1262. Cf. for the opposite view Valerov,
Новгород, pp. 179–80, where the reference to Pskovians in PL 2, p. 82 is considered
plausible.
142  L R, lines 6339–6461; Ипатьевская летопись, p. 817.
228 chapter 5

and advanced as far as Wenden with Duke Treniota. Following the Russian
offensive against Dorpat, Treniota devastated Wiek at the start of 1263, razing
Old Pernau to the ground. However, following Mindaugas’ assassination in 1263,
Lithuania became embroiled in internal conflicts, allowing the Order to rees-
tablish its position in Curonia during the subsequent years. The Semgallians
yielded again to the Order in 1272.143
In connection with the campaign of 1262 the Rhymed Chronicle describes
the devastation of the area around Dorpat, the capture of the town and the
assault on the castle, which was also where the bishop lived, by the Russians.
This chronicle of the Order ridicules the mortal fear of the clergy and stresses
the merits of the brothers who rushed to help in the defence of the castle.144
For the chronicler, the Russian offensive was part of an attack by the Lithuanian
king on the Order motivated by his apostasy. In the treaty between Mindaugas
and Novgorod Lithuania indeed proved to be the stronger party. The sub-
ject of the conflict with Lithuania over Toropets disappears thereafter from
the Novgorod chronicles. As a consequence, some scholars have concluded
that Novgorod may have recognized the sovereignty of the Lithuanian dukes
in this region.145 Novgorod obtained in return, through Lithuania’s military
support, the chance of winning booty in Livonian Dorpat, which was located near
the border.
At the same time Novgorod also agreed a peace treaty with Gotland, Lübeck,
and all the Hanseatic cities aimed at guaranteeing trade and in which a num-
ber of disputed issues are mentioned as now being resolved. These did indeed
include many a conflict in Karelia, whose main alliance was with Novgorod;
but now it was proclaimed that Novgorod would not take any responsibility for
the evil that had occurred in Karelia. The treaty was concluded in the name of
Prince Aleksandr and his son Dmitrii in the period between Dmitrii’s accession
as prince of Novgorod (1259) and Aleksandr’s death (1263). The letter of the
capitaneus and the council of Reval to Lübeck, probably written in the sum-
mer of 1259, contains a reference to an injustice (on the Russian side?) in the
German trading enclave in Novgorod.146 Perhaps the treaty was indeed drawn
up at the time by the envoys.147 The extant manuscript, in addition to the seals
of the archbishop of Novgorod and Novgorod as a whole, also bears the seal of

143  See Benninghoven, “Der livländische Ordensmeister”.

144  L R, lines 6608–62.
145  Ianin, Новгород и Литва, pp. 52–53.
146  L UB 1, no. 215; DD 2/1, no. 244, HUB 1, no. 527; LUR, no. 915; cf. no. 992b.
147  Goetz, Deutsch-Russische Handelsverträge, pp. 72–90; Rennkamp, Studien, pp. 65–69.
Relations between Rus ’ and Livonia 229

Prince Iaroslav Iaroslavich,148 who did not accede to the throne of Novgorod
until 1265. The same parchment from the former city archive of Riga also pre-
serves the text of a trade agreement of 1191/92. It is clear that the seal of Prince
Iaroslav does not indicate late ratification of the treaty but serves to certify the
copy later made (c. 1270) and sent to Riga.149
In the middle of the 13th century the princes of northern Rus’ also had con-
tacts with bordering Latin countries and the papal curia. The hope of build-
ing an anti-Mongol league became confused with the idea of the ecclesiastical
union between the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches and the political
interests of local potentates. These intentions failed, leading to a series of mili-
tary conflicts. On the whole, however, this was a period in which the political
system of Rus’ was changing and being reorganised and when it was poten-
tially open not only to personal, commercial, and political, but also ecclesiasti-
cal cooperation.

5.5 Didman’s Votia Campaign of 1256

On 19 March 1255 Pope Alexander IV wrote to the archbishop of Riga inform-

ing him of the need to appoint a new bishop in the region. It can be gleaned
from the letter that nobiles viri Otto de Luneborch et Tidericus de Kivel fratres
Rigensis et Revaliensis diocesium acted as the petitioners at the curia. They
must have informed the pope that a not insignificant number of pagans in the
surrounding regions wished to convert to Christianity. The pope issued Albert
Suerbeer with the necessary authority and instructed him to appoint a bishop
for these pagans, without ignoring the rights of other institutions, particularly
the Teutonic Order.150 The letter was issued in Naples as part of a series of
letters in favour of the Teutonic Order and thus apparently all applied for at the
same time.151 On 3 August the same year, together with privileges intended for

148  G VNP, no. 29; LUB 1, no. 3033.

149  Khoroshkevich, “О происхождении,” pp. 130–31. See also Ianin, Средневековый
Новгород, pp. 202–04. In Johansen, Nordische Mission, p. 46 a Russian threat to Reval is
mentioned. However, his sources (LUB 1, nos. 468–69; DD 2/2, nos. 427–28; dated c. 1265 or
c. 1280) do not give any grounds for such a supposition. Cf. Igor E. Kleinenberg, “Договорь
Новгорода с Готским берегом и немецкими городами 1262–1263 гг. (по данным
отчета послов немецкого купечества 1292 г.),” in Вспомогательные исторические
дисциплины 7 (1976), 119, 124; Rybina, Торговля, pp. 110–13; NA, pp. 82–84, no. 3; Rowell,
“Between Lithuania and Ruś,” pp. 13–15.
150  L UB 1, no. 281; BD, no. 492.
151  See LUR, nos. 772a–78 (1 to 19 March 1255); cf. no. 779.
230 chapter 5

a Rigan monastery, the pope granted Archbishop Albert, at his own request,
permission to appoint a bishop for the people of Votia, Ingria, and Karelia.
These lands, whose peoples were in the process of converting from paganism
to Christianity, were seen as part of the church province of Riga.152
The Novgorod Chronicle relates in this regard that Swedes, Tavastians, Finns,
and a certain Didman (Дидман) had arrived with his people and a large army
(съ своею волостью и множьство) in 1256 and built a castle on the Narva
River. The Novgorodians sent messengers to north-eastern Rus’ to the prince
asking for an army and themselves began to gather the contingent:

And they, accursed ones, having heard, fled beyond the sea. Prince
Alexander arrived in the winter of the same year, and the Metropolitan
[Kirill] with him; and the prince took the road together with the
Metropolitan, and the men of Novgorod did not know where he was
going, some thought that he was going against the Chud people. And hav-
ing reached Koporye, Alexander went against the Tavastian people; but
the Metropolitan returned to Novgorod, and many other men of Novgorod
turned back from Koporye. And the Prince went with his own force and
with the men of Novgorod [to war].153

This passage is linked to a comment in the chronicle under the year 1294:
“Titmanovich (Титмановичь) secretly put up his father’s fort on this side of the
Narva River (отии городок на сеи стороне Нарове), and the men of Novgorod
went and burned it down, and they took and burned down his big village.”154
These accounts are interconnected. The question is what the aim of these
campaigns was and who instigated them. It was pointed out as long as ago as
the 19th century that the name Didman in the Novgorod Chronicle refers to
Dietrich von Kivel, one of the most important vassals of northern Estonia.155
But was his position as an individual vassal so important that he alone can be
regarded as the driving force behind these events? Paul Johansen ­considers
Kivel truly such a key figure, the real ruler of Vironia, who may have been

152  L UB 3, no. 283b; LUR, nos. 783–84.

153  N L1, pp. 81, 308. Cf. Лаврентьевская летопись, p. 474; SL1, pp. 333–34. In addition to the
Tavastia campaign, the Sofia Chronicle also mentions (mistakenly?) an army against the
Chuds. The latter could here also mean the inhabitants of north-western Votia.
154  N L1, p. 328
155  Busse, “Die Burg Odenpäh,” p. 344; Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, pp. 147–57. Nazarova,
“Crusades,” pp. 191–92 believes that “Didman” was Dietrich’s son, Tidemann von Kivel, but
Tidemann’s son was called Otto, who also gave his name to the otii gorodok mentioned in
1294. Tidemann (see LUB 1, no. 513) is in any case simply another version of Dietrich. See
also Johansen, Estlandliste, p. 867.
Relations between Rus ’ and Livonia 231

enfeoffed in Votia as early as 1241 (see p. 158).156 Dietrich von Kivel and Otto
von Lüneburg were also vassals of the archbishop of Riga.157 The archbishop
was in France in December 1254 and in Lübeck at the beginning of the summer
(?) of 1256.158 We know that Albert Suerbeer generally acted in Vironia against
the interests of the Danish king. The Votia campaign of 1255–56 promoted by
the archbishop cannot therefore be seen as part of a planned crusade by the
Danish monarchy in the pagan territories adjoining Estonia.159 There are also
no direct accounts for 1256 to indicate that the Teutonic Order was involved in
the campaign in Votia as had been the case in 1241. Such a crusade had still not
been carried out and in fact never would never be. The Novgorod Chronicle
mentions Didman and “his people”, which is to say those dependent on him,
although they are mentioned last in the sequence. Aleksandr Iaroslavich also
undertook a series of reprisals in Tavastia. However, if this campaign is to
be seen as a Swedish-Finnish crusade, it would make sense if the territory to be
captured lay within the sphere of interest of the archbishop of Uppsala, which
Votia was not. The Swedish king obtained a summons from the pope between
1255 and 1257 to the archbishop of Uppsala to preach the crusade, since the
people of his kingdom were suffering from frequent raids conducted “by
the enemies of Christ, vernacular known as Karelians, as well as by the pagans
of other neighbouring lands”.160 The relations between Denmark and Sweden
in the 1250s were unstable, although a peace treaty was agreed in 1256.161

156  Johansen, Estlandliste, pp. 137–39, 510. Johansen’s belief that Kivel was the owner of
the village or castle on the Narva is pure specualtion, which the sources would tend to
contradict.
157  Goetze, Albert Suerbeer, pp. 147–57; Johansen, Estlandliste, pp. 800, 823; Transehe-
Roseneck, Die ritterlichen Livlandfahrer, p. 50.
158  L UR, nos. 764, 803.
159  Herman Kølln, Der Bericht über den Dänenkönig in den St.-Wenzels-Biographien des 13.
und 14. Jahrhunderts (Copenhagen, 1986) (Det Koneglige Danske Videnskaber­nes Selskab.
Historisk-filosofiske Meddelelser 52/2), pp. 13–14; DD 2/1, no. 179; BD, no. 484; Arbusow,
“Römischer Arbeitsbericht,” Latvijas Ūniversitātes Raksti 17 (1928), p. 337, no. 13. The
attempts to connect the events in Votia in 1256 and the failure of ecclesiastical union
in Galicia are misplaced, as in Christiansen, Northern Crusades, pp. 130–31; cf. Lind,
“Consequences,” p. 143.
160  S T 1, no. 106; FMU 1, no. 113. The letters of Pope Alexander IV dated 11 March 1256 on the
preaching of the crusade for Estonia, Livonia and Prussia are linked to the crusade of
the Teutonic Order on Livonia’s southern frontiers. See LUR, nos. 797–800. Cf. DD 1/7,
nos. 318–20; LUB 1, nos. 210–12, 257; PUB 1/1, nos. 225, 326; BD, no. 507; Vetera monumenta
Poloniae, no. 137; SD 1, no. 463; LUR, nos. 626–28, 715.
161  See ST 1, nos. 96, 99, 105. In 1260 Duke Karl, the son of Ulf Fasi, was killed at the Battle of
Durben in Curonia while fighting in the army of the Teutonic Order: Erikskrönikan, lines
272–361; Lindkvist, “Crusades,” p. 129.
232 chapter 5

The castle built in 1256 may have been located somewhere near the mouth
of the river Narva.162 This would have given its possessor the means of control-
ling the waterway to Pskov, but also the Luga river route to Novgorod, the very
route that the Livonians had already tried to capture in 1241. This would also
have been an ideal departure point from which to complete the conquest of
the rest of Votia. Such plans were in place, as the appointment of the bishop for
Votia, Ingria, and Karelia demonstrates. Thus in 1262 a certain Bishop Henry of
Votia, who was in Germany, is mentioned; probably in 1268 the former knight
of Stade and canon of Hamburg cathedral, Frederick of Haseldorp, who later
became bishop of Dorpat, was appointed bishop of Karelia.163
The military campaign of 1256, which can be placed in the context of a crusad-
ing policy that lasted throughout the 13th century, may thus have been brought
about at the instigation of Sweden.164 Some vassals in northern Estonia used
the campaign to expand the area under their control east of the Narva River.
The significance attributed to this event ranges from the narrowly regional165
to Europe-wide. Interpretations in the latter mould take it for granted that
the campaign was initiated by the pope.166 It would appear that, by ascribing
the key role in these events to their specialist area of research—whether the
Finnish church, Albert Suerbeer or the figure of Dietrich von Kivel—historians
have often been able to ascribe particular importance to their subject.
In 1253 the Novgorodians and the Karelians had gone on plundering raid in
Vironia, on the other side of the Narva River. A little later in 1255–57 a series
of revolts broke out in Novgorod. In this context the attempt to baptize the
Votians, Ingrians, and Karelians, as well as the aim of controlling the estuar-
ies of the rivers crucial to Novgorod’s trade, would have appeared absolutely

162  Stern, “Dorpat-Pleskauer Kämpfe,” p. 102; Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси против крестоносной
агрессии, p. 214.
163  Anti Selart, “Friedrich von Haseldorf, Bischof von Karelien,” in Raudkivi and Seppel,
Sõnasse püütud minevik, pp. 79–91. See also Colker, “America,” p. 725, para. 25: a descrip-
tion of eastern Europe written c. 1255–60, which might originate from the circle of Albert
Suerbeer, mentions the priest Vaislanus who preached in Alba Ruscia (northern Rus’?)
and encouraged a merchant to begin the mission to Karelia. Should the identification of
Alba Ruscia be correct, this represents evidence of Rigan missionary activity in Votia in
the 1250s.
164  See John Lind, “Den dansk-russiske traktat 1302. Erik Menveds østpolitik og omvæltnin-
gen i de nordiske alliancer,” Historisk Tidsskrift (Copenhagen) 96/1 (1996), 7. Cf. Nazarova,
“Crusades,” p. 191.
165  Dircks, “Russisch-livländische Beziehungen,” p. 30.
166  Jaakkola, Kuningas Maunu, pp. 34–36; Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси против крестоносной
агрессии, pp. 208–09, 212–15; cf. Fennell, Crisis, p. 114.
Relations between Rus ’ and Livonia 233

feasible. Novgorod’s power in the Koporye region did indeed continually

strengthen in the second half of the 13th century, but there was also a real pos-
sibility that the relationship of dependency or the alliance of the Votians and
Karelians with Novgorod would not continue.167 This attack did therefore affect
Novgorod’s commercial interests and impinged on its political power and that
of its prince, but it still cannot be interpreted as an attempt to promulgate
Catholicism in Christian Rus’. The withdrawal of the Swedes is explained in the
Novgorod Chronicle by the news that Novgorod had summoned Grand Prince
Aleksandr and itself began to gather an army. The general view in the histori-
ography is that the castle was abandoned after the army had been formed in
Novgorod.168
Scholars have usually dated the journey of Prince Aleksandr’s envoys from
Novgorod to Trondheim to 1251–52. The talks dealt with the division of the lev-
ies collected from the Finnmark and the Russian request that Christina, the
daughter of the King Haakon Haakonsson of Norway, be given in marriage
to Aleksandr’s son. Norway’s return embassy subsequently crossed the Baltic
Sea to Novgorod, but the planned marriage did not take place. According
to the saga, this was because of the Mongol campaigns against Novgorod.169
Aleksandr’s embassy has recently been dated to 1257, when Novgorod was in
fact affected by the military campaign of the Mongol tax collectors. Scholars
have related Aleksandr’s diplomatic plans with his attempt to strengthen his
position in the war against Sweden.170
The Votian campaign of Dietrich von Kivel and the Swedish crusaders
indicates that the attempt to continue the crusading mission eastward from
Estonia was still alive. However, this was not in line with the main political
goals of either the Teutonic Order or the king of Denmark. Kivel and his allies
were in fact trying to gain the upper hand before a possible Danish crusade
in Ingria. Although this venture provoked the conflict with Novgorod and its
prince, it was never conceived as anti-Russian or anti-Orthodox.

167  Nazarova, “Crusades,” p. 189 presumes a coalition of Didman with the Votian elite in 1256.
168  Cf. Arnold Süvalep, Taani-aegne Narva. Нарва датского времени (Narva, 1995), pp. 18–19.
169  Icelandic sagas, pp. 266–267, para. 271.
170  Glazyrina, Dzhakson and Melnikova, “Скандинавские источники,” pp. 531–34; Tatiana N.
Dzhakson and Vladimir A. Kuchkin, “Год 1251, 1252 или 1257? (К датировке русско-
норвежских переговоров),” in Восточная Европа в древности и средневековье.
Х Чтения к 80-летию Владмир Т. Пашуто (Moscow, 1998), pp. 24–28. This notion is
opposed by John Lind, “Russian Echoes,” p. 234; cf. Dzhon Kh. Lind, “‘Разграничительная
грамота’ и Новгородско-норвежские договоры 1251 и 1326 гг.,” in NIS 6 (16) (1997),
pp. 135–43.
 chapter 6

Livonia and Rus’, 1260–1330

6.1 Prince Dovmont’s Seizure of Power in Pskov

Lithuanian rulers came to play an increasingly important role in the affairs

of Livonia and the Russian territories in the last third of the 13th century. The
area controlled by Lithuania began to expand rapidly towards the east and
the south, where the small Russian principalities were forced one after the other
to recognize their dependency on the emerging new power. The Lithuanian
ruler Mindaugas renounced his cooperation with the Teutonic Order c. 1262.1
Shortly afterwards his wife Martha died. The Hypatian Chronicle says the king
then wished to marry Martha’s sister, who was the wife of Duke Dovmont of
Nalsen. When Dovmont learned of this, he decided to join Duke Treniota’s
plot to assassinate the king. When Mindaugas sent his army with Dovmont
against Prince Roman of Briansk in 1263, Dovmont unexpectedly turned back
and killed Mindaugas and his two sons on 5 August 1263.2 Dovmont was one of
the leading dukes in Nalsen, the region located in the north-east of Lithuania
on the border with Polotsk.3 Treniota’s nephew Tautvila, who was also prince
of Polotsk, was also involved in this conspiracy. It appears that Dovmont with-
drew from the ensuing succession struggle after having taken his revenge, for
it was Treniota and Tautvila who came into conflict over Mindaugas’ inheri-
tance. Treniota killed Tautvila in the winter of 1263–64. Rule in Polotsk was
secured by Dovmont’s rival Duke Gerdenis of Nalsen, who had also taken over
in Nalsen, or one of the dukes dependent on him.4 Mindaugas’ retinue itself
then killed Treniota, and in 1264 Mindaugas’ Orthodox son Vaišelga, who was

1  Ivinskis, “Mindaugas,” pp. 371–73; Gudavičius, Mindaugas, p. 339.

2  Ипатьевская летопись, pp. 859–60; NL1, pp. 84, 313; LR, lines 7121–32. Cf. Летописи
белорусско-литовские, ed. Nikolai N. Ulashchik (Moscow, 1980) (PSRL 35), pp. 93–94, 150–51,
198–99; Хроники, pp. 32–33, 135.
3  On Nalsen, see Berkholz, “Vermischte Bemerkungen,” pp. 33–36; Johansen, “Riga-Wisby-
Urkunde,” p. 102; Gudavichius, “Литва”, pp. 219–25.
4  Ипатьевская летопись, pp. 860–61; NL1, pp. 84, 313; Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, pp. 133–34;
Michał Giedroyć, “The Rulers of Thirteenth-Century Lithuania: a Search for the Origins of
Grand Duke Traidenis and his Kin,” OSP, New Series 17 (1984), 16–20; Giedroyć, “Arrival of
Christianity in Lithuania: Early Contacts,” pp. 12, 16; Rowell, “Between Lithuania and Ruś,”
pp. 4–6; Liubov V. Stoliarova, “Мария Дмитриевна—жена Псковского князя Довмонта,”
in Средневековая Русь 1 (1996), pp. 58–75, at p. 65. On the chronology, see Hrushevskyi,

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004284753_008

Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 235

dependent on the princes of Volhynia, came to power in Lithuania. In the

Livonian Rhymed Chronicle Vaišelga is described as a friend of the Teutonic
Order and as a virtuous helper of Christians; after returning home from Rus’
after the death of his father he asked the master of the Livonian Order for help
against his father’s murderers and urged them to remember “that he too is a
Christian”.5
With the backing of troops from Galicia-Volhynia, Vaišelga advanced
to Nalsen, so that Dovmont and his retinue were forced to flee to Pskov.
Around 1267 Vaišelga handed over power to the Christian Shvarn, the son of
Daniil Romanovich who was married to a daughter of Mindaugas. Vaišelga
then retired to a monastery, where he was murdered shortly afterwards by
Daniil’s second son Lev. It is not known to what extent Shvarn was actually
able to secure his power in Lithuania; he died c. 1268–69. The pagan Traidenis
(d. 1281/82) from the rival dynasty was able to impose himself as grand duke of
Lithuania.6
In November 1263 Grand Prince Aleksandr Iaroslavich died in Gorodets on
the river Volga while on his way back from his fourth journey to the Horde.
The following year his son Prince Iurii was driven from Novgorod “because he
was still young” and replaced by Prince Iaroslav Iaroslavich of Tver. There was
perhaps concern among the people of Novgorod that the internal conflict in
Lithuania would spill over into the north-west of Rus’, which was why they
would prefer an experienced warrior as their ruler.7 Iaroslav (d. 1271/72) there-
after secured the position of grand prince of Vladimir.
Pskov was at this time also allied to Grand Prince Iaroslav, whose son
Sviatoslav represented him there. When Dovmont together with his retinue
and their families arrived in Pskov in 1265, they were received by Sviatoslav and
baptized.8 Only due to the grand prince’s intervention was it possible to pre-
vent an expedition planned in Novgorod to slay the Lithuanians in Pskov. The
fact that Sviatoslav recognized the Lithuanians as auxiliary troops strength-
ened the position of Iaroslav Iaroslavich, whose role as all-powerful prince

“Хронольоґія,” pp. 43–44. See also Edvardas Gudavičius, “Ar Treniota Žemaičių kunigaikštis?,”
Lietuvos TSR Mokslų Akademijos darbai A serija 1982, 4 (81), 63–70.
5  L R, lines 7133–7209. Cf. Hermanni Chronicon, p. 45.
6   Ипатьевская летопись, pp. 861, 869; NL1, pp. 84–85, 313–14. See also Nikžentaitis, “Die
litauische Gesellschaft,” p. 120; Artūras Dubonis, Traidenis. Monarcho valdžios atkūrimas
Lietuvoje 1268–1282 (Vilnius, 2009).
7  N L1, pp. 84, 313; Klug, “Fürstentum Tver’,” p. 49.
8  The name taken by Dovmont (modern Lithuanian Daumantas) at baptism was Timofei.
236 chapter 6

could have been jeopardized in the future by Novgorod independence.9 It is

likely that the costs for Pskov and Novgorod of accommodating the ‘unem-
ployed’ duke and his retinue10 fell to the local commoners of those towns.
The following year, however, Dovmont became prince of Pskov. In the sum-
mer of 1266 he embarked on a campaign with the Pskovians to Nalsen, where
he took Gerdenis’ wife and two sons prisoner. Gerdenis was defeated in the
ensuing battle on the river Daugava. That winter Dovmont repeated the cam-
paign. Meanwhile Iaroslav had been planning to overthrow Dovmont with
his troops from north-eastern Rus’, but this attack never took place because
of the revolt in Novgorod.11 The overthrow of Sviatoslav in Pskov—which had
originally provoked the grand prince’s intention to launch a revenge attack—
changed the balance of power in the region: this time the power of a non-
Russian prince in Pskov provided the Novgorod burghers with the opportunity
they needed to prevail against their own prince, Iaroslav Iaroslavich. Dovmont
in fact launched his third campaign together with the Novgorodians, who were
not led by Iaroslav but by the boyar Elevferii Sbyslavich.12 These campaigns
were aimed against Gerdenis, who had consolidated his position in Nalsen and
Polotsk and was, moreover, regarded as Dovmont’s rival.13 In the long run for
Pskov the rule of Dovmont signified stronger connections with Lithuania.

6.2 Livonia, Lithuania, and Polotsk

The struggle to achieve supremacy in south-eastern Lettgallia continued in

the last quarter of the 13th century.14 Polotsk and Lithuania, which essentially

9  NL1, pp. 85, 314; PL 1, p. 13; PL 2, pp. 16, 21, 82–83; Klug, “Fürstentum Tver’,” pp. 50–51; Rowell,
“Between Lithuania and Ruś,” pp. 6–7.
10  See also Khoroshkevich, “Из истории,” p. 223.
11  NL1, pp. 85, 315; PL 2, pp. 16–17, 83–84. A late and unreliable tradition identifies the wife
of Gerdenis with the aunt of Dovmont or considers Gerdenis an uncle of Dovmont:
Okhotnikova, Повесть, pp. 40–42. See also Klug, “Fürstentum Tver’,” pp. 113–114.
12  NL1, pp. 85, 315; cf. p. 612.
13  Rowell, “Between Lithuania and Ruś,” pp. 7–9, 12. The argument of Sergei V. Beletskii
that Dovmont of Pskov was also the ruler of Polotsk during 1267–85 (“К изучению
новгородско-псковских отношений во второй половине ХIII в.,” in Археологическое
исследование Новгородской земли, ed. Gleb S. Lebedev (Leningrad, 1984), pp. 195–98)
is unfounded. Cf. Лаврентьевская летопись, p. 483; Симеоновская летопись, p. 81;
Летописи белорусско-литовские, p. 94; Giedroyć, “Rulers,” p. 15; Rowell, “Between
Lithuania and Ruś,” pp. 13–16; Gorskii, Русские земли, p. 106.
14  Auns, Социально-экономическая и политическая структура, p. 22.
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 237

controlled the former, confronted the Teutonic Order and the archbishopric of
Riga, themselves rivals. Unfortunately there are many gaps in the sources for
this conflict. The main source is provided by the interrogation record, only part
of which has survived, compiled several decades later under the supervision
of Francis of Moliano (d. 1325; bishop of Fermo, 1318–25). The record contains
only the very brief answers by the witnesses to the inquisitor’s questions, leav-
ing the questions themselves to be guessed at (see p. 286).15
Duke Gerdenis of Nalsen controlled Polotsk until his death in the campaign
against him led by Dovmont alongside Pskov and Novgorod in 1267,16 but it
is not known who represented him on the ground. Polotsk and Vitebsk were
apparently ruled around the same time by princes both called Iziaslav, from
the local princely dynasty (see p. 209). It was common during the rapid territo-
rial expansion of the grand duchy for the local dynasty to continue in power
even after Lithuania’s conquest of a particular region. Even the fragmentary
accounts of rule in Polotsk and the neighbouring town of Vitebsk at the turn of
the 13th and 14th centuries point towards the presence of long-standing local
princely houses, although this does not of course mean that the Lithuanian
grand dukes had no influence there. The events can only be dated extremely
vaguely, which is why it is so difficult to discuss the links between this region
and the Livonian states.
During the period of rule of Grand Duke Vaišelga (c. 1263/64–67) both
Polotsk and Vitebsk were ruled by princes from a local line of descent.17 Since
Vaišelga was on friendly terms with the Teutonic Order in Livonia, it is rea-
sonable to assume that relations between Polotsk and the Order were also
more or less friendly. In the last decades of the 13th century the Rigan town
council in its letter complained to Prince Mikhail of Vitebsk of injustices suf-
fered by Rigan merchants there. In the letter concerned it is pointed out that
there had been no misunderstandings in matters of trade under Konstantin,
Mikhail’s father.18 It may be the case that this Konstantin, the father of Mikhail
of Vitebsk, was the same Prince Konstantin of Polotsk who had previously
assigned lands to the Teutonic Order (see p. 206). At the end of the 1280s it
seems that Vitebsk submitted to the authority of Smolensk, and the former

15  Zeugenverhör, pp. XVI–XXII.

16  NL4, p. 236; cf. SL1, p. 343; NL1, pp. 85, 315. Cf. Fennell, Crisis, p. 158.
17  P G 1, no. 2; LUB 6, no. 3037. See Klug, “Fürstentum Tver’,” pp. 113–14; cf. Gorskii, Русские
земли, p. 53.
18  R LU, no. 49; LUB 6, no. 3059. On the date of the letter, see Goetz, Deutsch-Russische
Handelsverträge, pp. 332–34; Goetz, Deutsch-Russische Handelsgeschichte, p. 459;
Hellmann, Lettenland, p. 205; Rowell, Lithuania, p. 21.
238 chapter 6

was ruled by a prince from the house of Briansk as governor for Prince Fedor
Rostislavich of Smolensk.19
Sometime around 1274–76 the pagan grand duke of Lithuania, Traidenis,
agreed a peace treaty with the Teutonic Order, the archbishop and the city of
Riga, and the entire “Christian people”. It is apparent from later complaints,
however, that the Lithuanians violated the treaty.20 These complaints them-
selves reveal that trade on the Daugava was vibrant, a fact also testified to by
the trade treaties confirmed by the princes of Smolensk. One such confirma-
tion was issued by Prince Fedor Rostislavich of Smolensk in 1284, certifying the
peaceful trade between Smolensk, the archbishop, the master of the Livonian
branch of the Teutonic Order, the city of Riga, and the German merchants.21
Internal tensions continued to intensify within Livonia. The events of the
1260s and 1270s anticipated the internal conflict that would break out at the
end of the century. After the Battle of Durben in 1260 the Teutonic Order in
Livonia was mainly occupied with the reconquest of Curonia, which it was
able to complete in 1267. Resistance came from Semgallia with support from
Samogitia, so that Semgallia’s capitulation in 1272 was only temporary. It
was only as a result of the warfare during 1279–90 that the Semgallians were
finally defeated. It is likely that this fighting took up so much of the Order’s
resources that Archbishop Albert Suerbeer was able to strengthen his position
while making sure he had the foreign support he would need. In 1267 Count
Gunzelin III of Schwerin (1228–74) and Duke Henry of Mecklenburg (d. 1302)
arrived in Livonia as crusaders of the archbishop. In contrast to the attempts
by the Order to conquer Curonia and Semgallia, the archbishop focused his
claims on Nalsen. The legal precedent on which this was based was the treaty
agreed with the nobleman Suxe or Nicholas of Nalsen (d. 1273) in 1268, who
had assigned his possessions to the archbishop after his baptism, receiving
them back as fiefs.22 Suxe can be regarded as an opponent of Gerdenis and his

19  L UB 6, no. 3051. See also Rowell, Lithuania, pp. 84–85.

20  H UB 1, no. 1015; LUB 1, nos. 452, 507; LUR, nos. 1213–14, 1221a. See also Goetz, Deutsch-
Russische Handelsgeschichte, pp. 457–58.
21  Ivanovs and Kuzņecovs, Smoļenskas-Rīgas aktis, pp. 614–23; LUB 1, no. 492; Goetz,
Deutsch-Russische Handelsverträge, pp. 329–30; Rennkamp, Studien, pp. 212–14; Lenhoff
and Martin, “Smolensk after the Mongol Invasions,” 128–29. Cf. LUB 6, no. 3049; Gorskii,
Русские земли, p. 37.
22  Perlbach, “Urkunden,” pp. 17–18: “Suxe siue Nicholaus nobilis de Lettowia de prouincia
Nalsen gratia sibi inspirante diuina gentilitatis errore relicto . . . omnem hereditatem
suam in terris, nemoribus et in aquis, cultis et incultis, quam in prouincia Nalsen a pro-
genitoribus suis noscitur possedisse, ad manus nostros . . . libere resignauit et postmodum
tam pro se, quam pro fratre suo absente recepit a nobis in feudum.” The virtuousness and
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 239

heirs. Possession of Nalsen would have enabled the archbishop to control the
Daugava trade route. Count Gunzelin was bound to the archbishopric by being
made its bailiff and protector against “barbarians and all other intruders”.23
Such intruders might have also been meant to include the Teutonic Order
among others. When the count left Livonia in 1268, the Order detained the
archbishop, imprisoning both him and the cathedral provost of Riga for an
extended period. The archbishop was forced to make a number of concessions
under this pressure and to renounce his plans to seek help from a foreign ruler
or petition the curia for proceedings to be commenced against the Order.24
The chronicle of Hermann von Wartberge says of Ernst von Ratzeburg, who
had become provincial master of the Livonian Order in 1274 (until 1279), that
he built the castle at Dünaburg and immediately afterwards, that he reached
an agreement with a certain Rudolf von Ungern. The chronicle also relates
that the Order’s provincial master, Gerhard von Jork, rebuilt Dünaburg in
1313, “which had previously been destroyed by brothers of the Order to save
the knight Johann von Üxküll from the pagans, since he had been captured by
the Lithuanians in Gerzike”.25 The Order had already had a castle in eastern
Lettgallia prior to this: the commander of the Wolkenburg is mentioned in 1263
and 1271. This castle located in eastern Lettgallia is not mentioned thereafter
among the Order’s castles.
In the documents from the 14th century the Teutonic Order is accused of sur-
rendering two castles to the pagans,26 which may relate to the above account.
It has been concluded on this basis that these castles were the Dünaburg and
Wolkenburg.27 However, it is more plausible that the strongholds supposedly
surrendered by the Order were the Dünaburg and Polotsk because there are
reports that there had once been a Catholic church in Polotsk (see p. 204).28
The account in the Rhymed Chronicle of the construction of the Dünaburg
does not create the impression that this was built in a land under the firm con-
trol of the Order. The Order’s troops gathered in Riga and took many ­provisions

piety of Suxe is also extolled by the Rhymed Chronicle, itself written by a Teutonic Knight,
which mentions that he had been baptized in the land of the Order. See LR, lines 8107–20:
“er quam in der brûdere lant,/ dô entpfienc er den cristentûm”.
23  L UB 1, no. 406.
24  L UB 1, no. 412. See Johansen, “Riga-Wisby-Urkunde,” pp. 95–108; Berkholz, “Vermischte
Bemerkungen,” pp. 33–36. Archbishop Johannes of Riga (1294/95–1300) was a son of
Gunzelin. See also LR, lines 9810–14.
25  Hermanni Chronicon, pp. 48, 56–57.
26  Zeugenverhör, witness VII, p. 40, para. 182.
27  Taube, “Russische und litauische Fürsten,” pp. 495–97.
28  Zeugenverhör, supplement IV, p. 164, para. 13.
240 chapter 6

and arms with them. Once the castle had been quickly built, Master Ernst
returned to Riga.29 The newly built castle was then unsuccessfully besieged by
Traidenis, the grand duke of Lithuania.30 The Dünaburg was probably built to
replace the former hill fort burchwalle Nowenene.31 It was here that the major
transport route from north to south crossed the river Daugava.
Michael von Taube saw a connection between the construction of the Düna­
burg and the treaty with Rudolf von Ungern. He argued that the Dünaburg had
been built on the site to which Rudolf von Ungern was meant to be entitled.32
There are in fact no grounds for such conjectures since we do not know what
the compositio mentioned in the chronicle of Hermann von Wartberge dealt
with in the first place.33 Both Rudolf von Ungern (mentioned in the sources
1277–1325) and Johann von Üxküll (mentioned in the sources 1288–1325) are
undoubtedly notable figures in the history of Livonia during this period. Both
were vassals of the archbishop who proceeded to act in the Order’s interests, or
at least in harmony with them, against their actual lord.34
In the later legal proceedings the Order was accused of taking the Dünaburg
away from the archbishop and selling it for three hundred marks to the
Lithuanians.35 The Order was also said to have sold the castle of Polotsk, which
was in the archbishop’s possession, located on the frontier with the pagans.

29  L R, lines 8169–8207. The ‘Ronneburg Necrology’ recorded in the translation by Maciej
Stryjkowski mentions a fallen Livonian (?) brother of the Order: Henricus Sazendob,
comendator Nieschowski, ze dwunaścią braciej (Stryjkowski, Kronika, vol. 1, p. 284). There
is no reason to identify this person as a commandor of Dünaburg during the 1240s. Cf.
Benninghoven, Orden, p. 460; Fenske and Militzer, Ritterbrüder, p. 560, no. 753; Arbusow,
“Die im Deutschen Orden in Livland vertretenen Geschlechter,” p. 88, no. 392. It is more
likely in this instance that Wenden (Polish: Kieś) in Livonia or Nessau (Polish: Nieszawa)
in Prussia is being referred to. The view is therefore unfounded that the Order’s castle at
Dünaburg already existed in the 1240s (for example, as maintained by Militzer, Von Akkon
zur Marienburg, p. 377).
30  L R, lines 8208–94.
31  See LUB 1, no. 363; Ewalds Mugurevics, “Die archäologischen Ausgrabungen im Burgflecken
bei der alten Dünaburg,” in “Homburger Gespräch”, Heft 6: Beiträge zur Geschichte der
Kunst im Ostseeraum, ed. Erich Böckler (Bad Homburg, n.d.), pp. 106–07, 112.
32  Taube, “Russische und litauische Fürsten,” pp. 464–66. See also Taube, Ungern-Sternberg,
pp. 43–45.
33  See Hellmann, Lettenland, pp. 202–03; Johannes Haller, “Die Verschwörung von Segewold
(1316),” Mitt. Riga 20 (1910), 155–56.
34  See LUB 1, no. 524; 2, nos. 606, 621, 661, 710; 3, no. 481a; LGU, nos. 37, 41, 47–48.
35  Hermanni Chronicon, p. 152, para. 7; Zeugenverhör, p. 7 witness VI, para. 13; p. 27 witness
VII, para. 13; p. 40 witness VII, para. 182; p. 126 witness XXII, para. 182; p. 164 supplement IV,
para. 13; LUB 2, no. 968.
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 241

This enabled the pagans to drive away the Christians a tota frontaria and turn
the region into a desert.36 According to another version, the brothers of the
Order had oppressed (oppresserunt) the people of Polotsk to such an extent
that its inhabitants asked the pagans to help them, who then came and drove
the Christians from Polotsk.37 The verb oppresserunt in this context undoubt-
edly means pressure from outside. In defending its actions, the Order claimed
that the Dünaburg had always belonged to it. The Lithuanians had previ-
ously destroyed the castle and then the Order had rebuilt it at the request of
the bishop of Dorpat, the archbishop, and the capital of Riga, as well as all
Livonian prelates. The bishop of Dorpat himself had supported the building by
providing four hundred men and one hundred silver marks. His precondition
had been that in return the Order was to support him if the bishop should in
future decide to build another castle for the protection of Christians on the
borders with Lithuania.38 Bishop Theodoric Vyshusen of Dorpat did indeed
have political ties with the Teutonic Order, but it is also true that the bishopric
of Dorpat, as we know, had shown an interest in the Daugava region as far back
as 1248 (see p. 200). The Order further declared that it had received the castle of
Gerzike from the vassal Johann von Üxküll as a security, paying three hundred
marks for it, since the knight Johann von Üxküll had wished neither to bear
the costs for the defence of the castle himself nor hand it over to the pagans.39
The three hundred marks received for the Dünaburg and the three hundred
paid to the knight Johann are most probably connected. Francis of Moliano
recorded the statement that the Teutonic Order itself had destroyed the
Dünaburg. It was in return for this that the Order received the sum in question

36  Zeugenverhör, p. 164 supplement IV, para. 13; p. 169 supplement V, para. 13; p. 57 witness
VIII, para. 182.
37  Zeugenverhör, p. 27 witness VII, para. 14.
38  Hermanni Chronicon, p. 152, para. 7; LUB 2, no. 1036, para. 7; Zeugenverhör, p. 201 supple-
ment IX, paras. 236–39. The castle of Neuhausen was founded with the Order’s help in
the bishopric of Dorpat on the border with Pskov in 1342. See Bartholomäus Hoeneke,
Liivimaa noorem riimkroonika (1315–1348) [ed. Sulev Vahtre] (Tallinn, 1960), pp. 70–72;
Hermanni Chronicon, p. 70.
39  Hermanni Chronicon, pp. 152–53, para. 8; cf., para. 10; LUB 2, no. 1036, para. 8; cf. para.
10; Zeugenverhör, p. 201 supplement IX, paras. 230–35. Cf. Alexander Rogatschewski,
“Baltische Rechtsdenkmäler des 13. bis 18. Jahrhunderts im Archiv des St. Petersburger
Instituts für Geschichte der Russischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,” in Einheit und
Vielfalt in der Rechtsgeschichte im Ostseeraum. Unity and Plurality in the Legal History of
the Baltic Sea Area, ed. Marju Luts-Sootak et al. (Rechtshistorische Reihe 428) (Frankfurt
am Main, 2012), pp. 201–217, here 209. By the 1230s at the latest the bishop of Riga was the
lord of Gerzike.
242 chapter 6

and was also why the knight held prisoner by the Lithuanians—Johann von
Üxküll—was released.40 Since the knight had been taken prisoner in Gerzike,
both incidents are linked to extensive military campaigns in south-eastern
Lettgallia. However, it is difficult to date these events. They could go back to
the campaign of Traidenis (d. 1281/82), in which case they would have occurred
c. 1280.41 At this time there were also restrictions to trade on the Daugava.42
According to a report by the Order from 1366, whose author has been identified
as Hermann von Wartberge, the Dünaburg was said to have since lain empty
for over thirty years.43
The revelation that Polotsk had been lost for the Latin church apparently
refers to the period in which Tautvila renounced the previous alliance and
went to war against Livonia. The claim that the Order had sold Polotsk may be
related to the ‘Constantinian Donation’, which was what prompted the Order
to promise to waive its claim to Polotsk. From the perspective of this study,
the complex history of the conquest of eastern Lettgallia shows us that, accord-
ing to the sources, fighting with the pagans was already taking place at the
time. Only the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle mentions the Russian archers in
Traidenis’ army,44 who probably came from the Russian areas subject to the
grand prince. Polotsk was consequently so tightly linked to Lithuania that it
could be subsumed under the general political description ‘pagans’.

6.3 The Battle of Wesenberg in 1268

Under the year 1267 the Novgorod Chronicle says:

The men of Novgorod consulted with their Prince Iurii, they wished to go
against the Lithuanians, while others [wished to go] against Polotsk and
others beyond the Narva River. And when they reached the village of
Dubrovna there was a quarrel; and they went back and went beyond the
Narva River to Wesenberg and made great havoc in their land, but did not
take the castle.

40  Zeugenverhör, p. 27 witness VII, para. 13; p. 111 witness XX, para. 13.
41  Hellmann, Lettenland, p. 204; cf. Taube, “Russische und litauische Fürsten,” pp. 413–14.
42  Goetz, Deutsch-Russische Handelsgeschichte, p. 457.
43  Hermanni Chronicon, p. 152, para. 7; LUB 2, no. 1036, para. 7.
44  L R, lines 8217–19.
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 243

The army returned to Novgorod after suffering some losses.45 It was led by Iurii
Andreevich of Suzdal.46 The Novgorodians were unable to agree about the
target of the attack: the three potential opponents—Lithuania, Polotsk, and
northern Estonia—were seen as interchangeable. Polotsk and Lithuania had
thus joined the side of Novgorod’s enemies after the death of Tautvila.
After the aborted campaign, the Novgorodians began to plan a new and
more wide-ranging offensive. At the initiative of the posadnik Mikhail, a num-
ber of other rulers were enlisted: Dmitrii Aleksandrovich of Pereiaslav, Iaroslav
Iaroslavich’s sons Sviatoslav and the infant Mikhail as the grand prince’s repre-
sentatives, Iurii Andreevich of Suzdal, Konstantin Rostislavich of Smolensk, a
certain Iaropolk, Dovmont of Pskov, “and some other Princes”. This was a large
and extremely representative army. Siege engines were built in preparation, and
envoys from the Teutonic Order and the bishop of Dorpat gave assurances that
they would not interfere in Novgorod’s advance against Danish possessions in
northern Estonia. On 23 January 1268 a joint Russian army left for Wesenberg,
in Vironia, but there they encountered “on the river Kegola” (на реце Кеголе)
a large enemy force that had been gathered from the whole of Livonia. And
“there was a terrible battle such as neither fathers nor grandfathers had seen”.
The Russian army was defeated, “and Prince Iurii turned shoulder, or there was
treachery in him, God knows”. The chronicle goes on to say that God neverthe-
less showed mercy and on 18 February Prince Dmitrii and the Novgorodians
vanquished their opponents, who stumbled over the dead bodies as they fled
to the castle of Wesenberg. When they reemerged, the troops stood opposite
one another in the night until “they [the Livonians], accursed transgressors of
the Cross, fled, not waiting for the light.”47 The description of the battle in the
Novgorod Chronicle is extremely vivid and full of emotion.48
The outcome of the confrontation is far from clear. One Russian historio-
graphical tradition sees the Russian army as the undisputed victor. Yet the
Battle of Wesenberg has been regarded as of secondary importance compared
to the Battle of the Ice of 1242, despite involving a greater number of troops.
The Novgorod Chronicle describes both the Novgorod defeat and the victory
of the acknowledged leader of the attack, Dmitrii Aleksandrovich.49 According

45  NL1, pp. 85, 315. Cf. NL4, pp. 236–38; SL1, pp. 343–47.
46  See also Khoroshkevich, “Из истории,” p. 224; cf. Ianin, Новгородские посадники, p. 219;
NA, p. 150; Matuzova and Nazarova, Крестоносцы, pp. 343–44.
47  NL1, pp. 85–87, 315–18.
48  See also Gippius, “К характеристике,” pp. 348–50.
49  Лаврентьевская летопись, p. 525; Симеоновская летопись, p. 73; cf. PL 1, pp. 3, 13;
PL 2, pp. 17, 22, 84. On the identity of this prince (LR, lines 7637–44, p. 175; cf. pp. 319–20:
244 chapter 6

to the account found in the Livonian sources, the great Russian army was met
by 34 Teutonic Knights from Estonian territory (Fellin, Leal, and Weißenstein),
Bishop Alexander of Dorpat, and the vassals of the Danish king. Otto, the
provincial master of the Order, was at that moment elsewhere fighting
the Lithuanians. In the first battle at the church of Maholm the bishop of
Dorpat and two knights were killed, but in the second battle ûf eine bôse bach
victory was gained over the Russians.50 Stephen Rowell argues that the appar-
ent inconsistency in the sources can be overcome if they are taken to describe
different stages in the fighting.51 The losses on both sides were high overall, but
the Russians probably came off worse.52
The Vironia campaign, in which so many princes took part, was in fact a
continuation of the first aborted campaign whose participants had been
unable to reach an agreement in Dubrovna over the target of the offensive.
Dubrovna lay on the route from Novgorod to Pskov, on the Udokha River, a trib-
utary of the Shelon. Consequently, the army was already moving in the direc-
tion of Pskov, that is, was moving more towards Polotsk and Lithuania than
“beyond the Narva River”.53 The quarrel was serious enough to cause the army
to turn back shortly afterwards. The attack on northern Estonia can therefore
be explained by the fact that the advance was already underway and, since
the initial target proved to be unreachable, the weakest neighbouring region
was chosen in the interest of obtaining the expected booty. It is likely that the
Russians had already tried to besiege Wesenberg during the first campaign,
which also indicates far-reaching objectives. The Novgorod factions may have

“der kunic Dunctve was ein helt,/vumf tûsent Rûzen ûz erwelt/ mit den begreif er dô die
wer./ entriten was sîn ander her./ Nû moget ir hôren, wie ez gienc./ der brûdere vane die
were gevienc/ kegen in ûf eine bôse bach. dâ er der brûdere her besach”), see Matuzova
and Nazarova, Крестоносцы, p. 253; Johann Renner’s Livländische Historien, ed. Richard
Hausmann and Konstantin Höhlbaum (Göttingen, 1876), p. 51: “De koning van Russlandt
Dimitre was ein dapper helt, begrep mit 5000 Russen bestandt an einer bosen beke und
besach der broder heer”.
50  LR, lines 7567–7676, pp. 319–20; Hermanni Chronicon, p. 46; Johann Renner’s Livländische
Historien, p. 51.
51  Rowell, “Between Lithuania and Ruś,” pp. 9–10. Cf. Denis G. Khrustalev, Северные
крестоносцы. Русь в борьбе за сферы влияния в Восточной Прибалтике ХII–ХIII вв.,
vol. 2 (St Petersburg, 2009), pp. 125–72.
52  Fennell, Crisis, pp. 126, 135; Dircks, “Russisch-livländische Beziehungen,” p. 32; Nazarova,
“Низовские дружины,” pp. 18–19. On the location of the river Кегола (river Pada?), see
Toomas Tamla, “Viru-Nigula kirik ja Maarja kabel,” Stilus 4 (1993), 24–25.
53  Another place called Dubrovna was located on the river Kunya not far from Toropets, i.e.
also on the route from Novgorod to Lithuania or Polotsk.
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 245

had diverging foreign political interests. Estonia’s northern coast was strategi-
cally important in terms of trade for the land route between Novgorod and
Reval. Wesenberg’s controlling function over this route is evident. Moreover,
Novgorod’s interests were opposed to those of Denmark’s rulers and vassals in
Votia. The 1256 campaign by the Swedish and northern Estonian vassals had
been a failure, but their claims to control of Votia did not disappear (see p. 230).
The advance towards Pskov would have signified continued involvement in
Dovmont’s struggle with Lithuania, but the Novgorodians no longer agreed to
this. Dovmont’s participation in the impending campaign to Estonia was in
turn a form of repayment for the help provided by Novgorod in his offensive
against Nalsen.54
The Novgorod Chronicle says that the Order and the bishop of Dorpat prom-
ised not to take part in the campaigns but subsequently failed to keep this
promise. This explains why the chronicler is particularly disparaging towards
them. The Order’s master did not himself take part in the battle. It is also likely
that neither Count Gunzelin of Schwerin nor Duke Henry of Mecklenburg,
who were in Livonia at the time, took part: both had ties to the archbishopric
of Riga, but it kept a distance from these campaigns.55 The tensions between
the Teutonic Order and Denmark had become acute by that time. Under the
Treaty of Stensby the Order was not allowed to build any castles in Jerwia with-
out the permission of the Danish king. Despite this, in 1265 the Order built
the castle of Weißenstein “before” Jerwia. The author of the Rhymed Chronicle
also uses this particular expression to designate a stronghold built for the con-
quest of a region.56
The Order unexpectedly changed its decision when the assembled Russian
army proved to be capable of victory and a potential threat to its position in
Livonia.57 The subsequent military confrontation shows that the participa-
tion of Dovmont of Pskov could have been the decisive factor: Dovmont had
become the main military opponent both for the Order and Dorpat. Moreover,

54  Cf. Stryjkowski, Kronika, vol. 1, p. 283: “Alexander, biskup Derpteński, w Liflanciech zabit
od Litwy” (‘Ronneburg Necrology’). The document SD, vol. 1, no. 529 (cf. LUB 6, Reg. 436b,
p. 22) aimed against the Russians and sometimes dated to 1267 actually dates from the
pontificate of Clement VI (1342–52).
55  Johansen, “Riga-Wisby-Urkunde,” p. 102.
56  L R, lines 7513–26 (“sie ist gebûwet vor daz lant,/ daz dâ Jerwen ist genant” [Weißenstein]);
cf. lines 7405–06 (“das hûs Mytowe ist genant/ und liet vor Semegallen lant”), 7773. On
the situation in Denmark during this period, see for example Niels Skyum-Nielsen,
Kirkekampen i Danmark 1241–1290. Jakob Erlandsen, samtid og eftertid (Copenhagen, 1963)
(Scandinavian university books), pp. 347–49.
57  Thus, for example, Khoroshkevich, “Из истории,” pp. 227–28.
246 chapter 6

the Danish vassals—who were not always on good terms with their king—
were the Order’s constant allies.
The counteroffensive led by the Order after the Battle of Wesenberg was
aimed not at Novgorod, but Pskov. The castle of Izborsk was burnt down
and Pskov besieged, but when the Novgorod troops led by Prince Iurii of
Suzdal arrived to help, the siege was ended and peace concluded. This peace
was regarded as favourable by both the Novgorod sources and those of the
Teutonic Order. The Livonian participants in the siege were the provincial
master of the Order and its knights and the Danish vassals.58 Since they had
travelled to Pskov by ship, it is also likely that the bishopric of Dorpat took
part. The bishop’s death at Wesenberg was a good motive for the revenge.59
The Rhymed Chronicle says, perhaps alluding to the capture of Pskov in
1240, that Pskov was a very good castle, which would be invincible if the
Russians there were not divided.60 As evidence of Dorpat’s continuing partici-
pation in the military campaigns, the Pskovian chronicles contain an account
of a battle “on the river Miropovna” (на реце на Мироповне): “Latins” plun-
dered a number of Pskovian villages in the frontier region; Dovmont together
with some Pskovians pursued them by ship, defeating them on 23 April. In the
description of this confrontation mention is made of islands and the burning
of one of them (perhaps referring to the grass or the reed). The vita of Dovmont
says that this episode took place between the Battle of Wesenberg (“after a few
days”) and the siege of Pskov.61 The Second Chronicle of Pskov dates this clash
to the same year in which the Battle of Wesenberg took place (1268),62 but the
Third Chronicle dates it to 1271.63
It is necessary to examine the relationship between the chronicles of Pskov
and the vita of Dovmont before these events can be dated. The vita is inte-
grated into the chronicles, with the result that some details appear twice. It is
not absolutely clear which text came first, the composition of the early chron-
icle in Pskov or the hagiographical text.64 As regards the chronicle account as
such, it would appear relatively clear that the date given in the Third Chronicle
of Pskov is attributable to later editors, who assigned years to some sections of

58  NL1, pp. 87, 318; LR, lines 7677–7768; PL 1, pp. 3–4; PL 2, pp. 17–18, 22, 85–86.
59  The former bishop of Karelia, Frederick, was elected the new bishop of Dorpat. See LUB
6, no. 3042.
60  L R, lines 7725–28.
61  P L 1, p. 3; PL 2, p. 17.
62  P L 2, p. 22.
63  P L 2, p. 85.
64  See Grabmüller, Pskover Chroniken, pp. 138–44; cf. Okhotnikova, Повесть, pp. 69–71.
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 247

the vita. The confrontation on the river Miropovna thus took place in 1268, after
Wesenberg and before the siege of Pskov. The river “Miropovna”, which it was
possible to reach from Pskov by boat and where there are some islands, may be
identical with the bay of Meerapalu, which must have been significantly nar-
rower in the 13th century than today. It would follow from this that the Russian
villages on Lake Lämmijärv or Lake Pskov were attacked by ship from Dorpat.65
The dating in the later Novgorod chronicles of the Miropovna battle to 1271 and
the ensuing siege of Pskov to 1272 is an instance of an inaccurate chronological
link between the vita of Dovmont and the text of the chronicle, which is why
the campaigns of Pskov are described twice in some later Russian chronicles,
under 1269 and then 1273.66
The date given for the siege of Pskov is also inconsistent: this took place
in May or June but was the year 1268 or 1269? The date and weekday for the
Battle of Wesenberg, which are given together in the chronicle, allow it to
be dated with certainty to 1268.67 In the First Novgorod Chronicle the Battle
of Wesenberg is recorded under the year 6776 (1268), and the siege of Pskov
under 6777 (1269). If the start of the year in the chronicles is dated to 1 March,
the siege would revert to 1268 in today’s system of dating.68 The following year
has been claimed as more likely on the basis that the Livonian army was not in
a position, following the defeat at Wesenberg, to embark on a new campaign
just a few months later.69 It would appear that this claim is based on an over-
estimation of the size of troop contingents at the time. Moreover, the Livonian
master of the Order himself took part in the siege of Pskov, but the bulk of
his troops remained absent from the campaigns in northern Estonia that took
place in February.
The year 1268 was also when the trade embargo with Novgorod was imposed
by the Livonian territorial lords and merchants. On 30 May 1268 the former
Livonian master Konrad von Mandern issued a charter in Lübeck confirm-
ing that the Teutonic Order had reached an agreement with the burghers of
Lübeck and the entire merchant community stating that in that year they were
not allowed to do business with “opponents of the faith, that is, with Russians
from Novgorod”. This agreement had been negotiated by the envoys of the king
of Denmark and of the bishop of Karelia, Frederick, simultaneously postulatus

65  Stern, “Dorpat-Pleskauer Kämpfe,” pp. 96–97.

66  NL4, pp. 241–42; SL1, pp. 352–54.
67  See Berezhkov, Хронология, p. 267.
68  For example, Khoroshkevich, “Из истории,” pp. 229–30; NA, p. 148; Bonnell, Russisch-
liwländische Chronographie, chrononology pp. 78–79; Berezhkov, Хронология, pp. 272–73.
69  Rowell, “Between Lithuania and Ruś,” p. 10. See also Nazarova, “Crusades,” pp. 194–95.
248 chapter 6

of Dorpat, and endorsed by all Livonian lords. Konrad von Mandern promised
in return that if peace were to be agreed with Novgorod, all the burghers and
merchants of Lübeck would be included and receive permission to travel freely
to and from Rus’. If one of the territorial lords wished to go to war against Rus’
on his own, he should not obstruct the exchange of goods, but “if all Christians
were to go to war against the Russians on account of their arrogance, God
forbid”, the merchants would have to be willing to enforce the trade embargo
once again, “for the Catholic faith, which has been implanted with the blood of
many honourable men, shall not be extirpated in Livonia for the sake of trade”.70
Konrad von Mandern had been provincial master in Livonia during the years
1263–66, when he abdicated and moved to Germany. In 1268 he was once again
occupied with Livonian affairs, this time in Lübeck, most likely at the behest of
the new provincial master, Otto von Lauterberg.71 The enforcement of a trade
embargo, which was a common leverage used in trade relations, to serve the
interests of the political conflict between Livonia and Rus’ may indicate that
trade issues lay behind the Novgorod military campaign. On the other hand,
the merchants still had to be forced to introduce the trade embargo, which
is also suggested by the pressure from the Danish side. Moreover, the dapi-
fer (seneschal) Mads Gøye (d. 1270 in battle with the Lithuanians) was sent
from Denmark to Estonia, indicating help from the motherland.72 Since the
Pskovian campaign was actually under way at the end of May, the trade block-
ade signals that either an enduring war was expected or it was being used as a
means of applying pressure during the hoped-for negotiations with Novgorod.
What is certain is that the actions of the dignitaries in Livonia and Lübeck
were not exactly well coordinated to say the least.
After the Pskov campaign, that is, about June 1268, Otto, the provincial mas-
ter of the Order, and the city of Riga proclaimed in identical letters that the
Teutonic Order, for the honour of God and glory of Christendom, had, with
divine forethought, completely ransacked the city of Pskov, “which was a place
of refuge for the traitors of Christian law”. A peace similar to that in the treaty
of 1224 from the time of Master Volkwin and Bishop Albert was agreed with the
Novgorod army. The merchants were called upon not to resume the exchange
of goods until the conclusion of the peace, and to this end the Lübeck envoys

70  L UB 1, no. 408; HUB 1, no. 655.

71  Benninghoven, “Der livländische Ordensmeister,” pp. 156–57.
72  Annales Danici, pp. 135, 147; Niels Skyum-Nielsen, “Estonia under Danish Rule,” in Danish
Medieval History. New Currents ed. Niels Skyum-Nielsen and Niels Lund (Copenhagen,
1981), p. 116; P. Peter Rebane, “The Danish Bishops of Tallinn, 1260–1346,” Journal of Baltic
Studies 5 (1974), 316.
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 249

were summoned to Livonia.73 It was therefore intended that the merchants

too be involved in the final peace. The reference to Bishop Albert’s time,
just as the expression in the Russian chronicles of “absolutely according to
Novgorod’s will”, refers to the ‘good old’ peace agreements. Pskov’s role as
traitor of Christianity mentioned in the letters may be linked on the one hand
to Russian Orthodoxy and on the other to the conferment of the rank of prince
on Dovmont, who just until recently had been pagan: Pskov was notably
described as the helper of the traitors of the faith (Lithuanians?) and as their
place of refuge. Although a scornful view of Novgorod and Pskov is expressed
in the letters, their authors aim at concluding a secure peace acceptable to
both sides. The use of such language is thus determined by the political situa-
tion and does not derive from any dispute about religious confession.
In 1268 Grand Prince Iaroslav Iaroslavich arrived in Novgorod and began to
level certain accusations: “My men and my brothers, and yours also, are killed,
and you have engaged in war with the Germans”. The grand prince attempted
to reestablish his authority, repressing his opponents by force. Perhaps they
had been the very ones to initiate the war with Livonia. The city wished to
regain the prince’s goodwill, which it needed because no true reconciliation
with the “Germans” had been achieved and the conflict was dragging on. In
the winter of 1268–69 Prince Sviatoslav Iaroslavich gathered a large army
from the north-east of Rus’ in which many princes, as well as the grand baskak
(Mongol province administrator) of Vladimir, Amragan, took part. This army
intended to attack Reval. Faced with this imminent danger, the “Germans”
quickly dispatched emissaries to Novgorod: “We bow to all your terms, we
withdraw from the whole of the Narva River (Норовы всеи отступаемся),
but do not you shed any blood”.
Peace was subsequently agreed on the terms dictated by Novgorod; and
because the offensive had not taken place in the end, Prince Sviatoslav
planned a new attack on Karelia, but the city opposed this, and thus the army
disbanded.74 Iaroslav Iaroslavich’s annoyance had evidently been provoked
by the conflicts with the Teutonic Order in Livonia rather than by the war in
northern Estonia. Hence, Novgorod itself might have been to blame when the
Order broke its promise not to take part in the war on Danish territory. The
agreement relating to the Narva River region was concluded with the Danish
and northern Estonian rulers, not with the Order. Consequently, this agree-
ment cannot be linked to the treaty agreed at Pskov. Although the agreement
was later confirmed in Novgorod, it was based on the status quo. One might

73  L UB 1, nos. 410–11; HUB 1, nos. 656–57.

74  NL1, pp. 87–88, 319; cf. Симеоновская летопись, p. 73.
250 chapter 6

weigh up the possibility that the confirmation occurred simultaneously, with

the Order representing all of Livonia, allowing it to secure its leading position.
The expression “withdraw from the whole of the Narva River” is hard
to interpret. The logical way of understanding it would be to mean that the
Estonians and Livonians renounced their claims to the territory beyond
the Narva River in Votia, where Novgorod’s rule was increasingly asserting
itself, but where the Danish vassals in Estonia claimed possessions at least
until the end of the 13th century. It is not clear whether the castle built in 1256
during the Votia campaign of Dietrich von Kivel was still there. Perhaps the
castle, which was located at a strategically important site, was the reason for
Novgorod’s dissatisfaction. The possessions of Kivel c. 1240 were indeed close
to Wesenberg and Tolsburg,75 the targets of the Russian campaign of 1268.
Certainly by 1294 the castle had been destroyed and so perhaps lay abandoned
during the 1268 campaign.76
It would appear that the German merchants presented their proposal for
peaceful trade with Novgorod in the autumn of 1268.77 This plan was not
accepted, however, since the treaty concluded prior to April 1269 differs in
some trade issues from these proposals.78 Since the Teutonic Order and Lübeck
acted in concert, it is entirely feasible that the confirmation of the peace
treaty with the Order and the conclusion of the trade treaty occurred simul-
taneously.79 The trade embargo against Novgorod had probably already ended
by 1269.80 At the end of April 1270, just after Master Otto had been killed in
February in fighting with the Lithuanians on the sea ice off the coast of Wiek,
the vice-master Andreas and the city of Riga thanked Lübeck for its support
in a joint letter. The letter otherwise noted that the burghers of Lübeck were
themselves to blame for the confiscation of their goods, since they had ignored
Master Otto’s warnings. At the recommendations of the territorial lords, the
trade route had been closed along the entire course of the Daugava, but the

75  Johansen, Estlandliste, p. 136.

76  Iuri Kivimiae [Jüri Kivimäe], “Была ли Нарва городом-филиалом Таллина в средние
века?” in Eesti NSV Teaduste Akadeemia Toimetised, Ühiskonnateadused 29 (1980), 116–17.
See also Süvalep, Taani-aegne Narva, pp. 11–20.
77  H UB 1, no. 663; LUB 1, no. 413; ST, no. 118.
78  H UB 1, no. 665; LUB 1, no. 414; ST, no. 118; GVNP, no. 31. See also LUB 1, no. 546; HUB 1,
no. 1093 (1271).
79  L UB 1, no. 415; HUB 1, no. 667. Some scholars have described these negotiations as a failure:
Khoroshkevich, “О происхождении,” pp. 130–31; Rennkamp, Studien, pp. 69–82. This is
not the impression created by the document itself.
80  L UB 1, no. 417.
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 251

regions of Novgorod and Rus’ were open for trade.81 The confiscation of goods
referred to apparently took place on the Daugava and had nothing to do with
relations with Novgorod. There is no clear answer about when the difficulties
in the exchange of goods with Novgorod were resolved and whether the extant
text of the 1268/69 treaty is the final version or only a draft.82 By the begin-
ning of 1270 at the latest trade with Novgorod was again functioning normally
via Riga.
The political situation in Novgorod was becoming more and more turbu-
lent. At the beginning of 1269 there was a revolt against Iaroslav Iaroslavich.
It was caused by the prince’s wilfulness and failure to respect the city’s tra-
ditional rights. The revolt developed into a full-scale military confrontation
between Iaroslav and Novgorod. Iaroslav requested help from the Mongols, but
Novgorod succeeded in blocking the arrival of the auxiliary troops. Novgorod
itself was able to call on troops from Pskov, Ladoga, Karelia, Ingria, and Votia
for support. Through the mediation of the metropolitan of Kiev, however,
an agreement was reached in which both sides were forced to make conces-
sions: Novgorod would have to continue to recognize Iaroslav as its prince in
future too.83 It can be gleaned from the 16th-century Nikon Chronicle that
Novgorod also called upon the “Germans” for help during this revolt.84 Anna
Khoroshkevich believes this information to be reliable on the assumption that
the German merchant community supported Novgorod in its conflict with the
prince. She also presumes on the basis of Iaroslav’s letter to Riga, mentioning
the prince’s authority, that he had discretion to deal with enemies, but that the
merchants were promised “free travel” throughout the prince’s possessions.85
After the 1268 war the border between Danish Estonia and Novgorod Votia
became fixed for the following centuries. The Livonian attempts to continue
the crusading effort to Ingria and Karelia virtually came to an end at this

81  L UB 1, no. 418; HUB 1, no. 678.

82  On the treaties of 1268–69, see Goetz, Deutsch-Russische Handelsgeschichte, pp. 41–46;
Khoroshkevich, “Из истории,” pp. 225, 230–31; Kleinenberg, “Договорь,” pp. 123–24;
Rennkamp, Studien, pp. 69–82, 177–78, 123–24; Norbert Angermann, “Novgorod und seine
Beziehungen zur Hanse,” in Europas Städte zwischen Zwang und Freiheit. Die europäische
Stadt um die Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts, ed. Wilfried Hartmann (Regensburg, 1995)
(Schriftenreihe der Europa-Kolloquien im Alten Reichstag, Sonderband), p. 200; Squires,
Die Hanse in Novgorod, pp. 194–208.
83  G VNP, no. 3; NA, no. 70; NL1, pp. 88–89, 319–21.
84  Летописный сборник, pp. 148–49. Cf. Лаврентьевская летопись, p. 525; Симеоновская
летопись, p. 73.
85  G VNP, no. 30; LUB 6, no. 3039; HUB 1, no. 666. See Khoroshkevich, “Из истории,” p. 231;
Khoroshkevich, “О происхождении,” pp. 130–31.
252 chapter 6

point. Nonetheless, these regions remained a target for Swedish crusading and
conquest.

6.4 Livonia, Novgorod, and Pskov, 1270–80

After Iaroslav Iaroslavich had reached the agreement with Novgorod at the
beginning of 1270, before leaving the city he appointed one of his retinue,
the Novgorod boyar Andrei Vorotislavich, as governor, “but he gave Prince Aigust
to the Pskovians”.86 Prince Aigust, who is only mentioned once in the chroni-
cles, is sometimes identified as Dovmont’s opponent and thus his appointment
as prince of Pskov would have been a hostile move against Dovmont.87 There is
also the opposite view, that Aigust could have been Dovmont’s right-hand man
and governor in Pskov and was simply endorsed by Iaroslav Iaroslavich in his
capacity as grand prince.88 Stephen Rowell contends that the reference is not
to the appointment of Aigust as prince at all, but concerns his being handed
over to Pskov and/or Dovmont.89
The winter of 1270–71 was spent by Dovmont in Novgorod, or rather just
outside the city, at the prince’s residence at Gorodishche. A meeting took place
in Novgorod between the representatives of the Baltic trading towns to discuss
the losses incurred during the disputes of 1269. Four princes, quatuor ex prin-
cipibus regis, represented Grand Prince Iaroslav in these negotiations, namely
Dovmundus, Surele, Wezcele, and Constantin. These were most likely Dovmont
of Pskov, the grand prince’s brother Vasilii Iaroslavich (d. 1276), Konstantin
Rostislavich from the Smolensk dynasty, and finally a certain Prince Kirill.90
Grand Prince Iaroslav Iaroslavich died in that same winter of 1271–72.
His brother, the new grand prince Vasilii Iaroslavich, and Dmitrii, the son of
Aleksandr Iaroslavich, competed for the throne in Novgorod. Novgorod chose
Dmitrii. This signalled the outbreak of hostilities between Tver and Novgorod,
given Vasilii’s connections with Tver. Vasilii had gained the advantage by 1273,
with the result that Novgorod was forced to pay homage to him as prince. Vasilii

86  NL1, pp. 89, 321.

87  Ianin, Средневековый Новгород, p. 258; Khoroshkevich, “Из истории,” p. 224.
88  Beleckii, “К изучению,” pp. 192–95; Klug, “Fürstentum Tver’,” p. 52; Pickhan, Gospodin
Pskov, pp. 140–42.
89  Rowell, “Between Lithuania and Ruś,” pp. 15–16. According to Rowell, Lithuania, p. 21,
Aigust could have been the aforementioned son of Tautvila who had flown to Novgorod.
90  H UB 1, no. 1093; LUB 1, no. 546. On the date (1271) and the individuals, see Rowell, “Between
Lithuania and Ruś,” pp. 13–16. See also NA, p. 150.
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 253

died in the winter of 1276–77, upon which Dmitrii Aleksandrovich became both
grand prince of Vladimir and prince of Novgorod. However, Dmitrii’s position
was not secure either in Novgorod as grand prince, which his brother Andrei
himself decided to fight for. Dmitrii built a wooden castle at Koporye in 1273,
which by the following year had already been upgraded to a stone structure
with the help of the Novgorod burghers and community. In 1281 Dmitrii and
Novgorod were at war with one another, as were Andrei and Dmitrii, both of
whom exploited disagreements within the Horde to call on help from Mongol
forces: Andrei enlisted the troops of the khan Töde Möngke (d. 1287) and
Dmitrii those of Emir Noghai (d. 1300).91 The Novgorodians supported Andrei
in this conflict, taking Dmitrii’s wife and children hostage and demanding
the castle of Koporye in return for their release. In the fighting over Koporye
Prince Dovmont of Pskov also fought for Dmitrii against Novgorod and Andrei.
Although the latter was able to gain the position of grand prince during 1281–
83, it finally went to Dmitrii in 1283. In 1284 the joined forces of Dmitrii, Andrei,
and the Mongols forced Novgorod to accept Dmitrii Aleksandrovich as prince.
The collaboration between Dovmont and Dmitrii Aleksandrovich was
further reinforced by the marriage between Dmitrii’s daughter Maria and
Dovmont sometime around 1281.92 This marriage alliance with the Riurikids
served to legitimize Dovmont’s power in Pskov. When a group of princes
from north-eastern Rus’ and Mongol troops led by Andrei launched the next
campaign against Dmitrii in 1293, it was to Pskov that he fled. Andrei finally
secured his position as grand prince and Novgorod was obliged to recog-
nize his rule. However, the conflict continued in the 1290s, as hostile coali-
tions of princes were formed. The princes of Rostov and Yaroslavl supported
Grand Prince Andrei, while the opposing side could count on the princes of
Pereiaslav, Tver, and Moscow. During the famine of 1296 Andrei’s representa-
tives were driven from Novgorod and replaced by representatives of Prince
Daniil Aleksandrovich of Moscow (d. 1303), Aleksandr Iaroslavich’s youngest
son, although in 1298 Andrei was again able to reestablish his authority.93
These power struggles in Rus’ are not directly reflected in its relations
with Livonia. For example, they did not affect Pskov’s right to tribute in the
north-east of Latvia, which remained in place right into the last quarter of the

91  NL1, pp. 323–24; SL1, pp. 356–58.

92  Grabmüller, Pskover Chroniken, p. 109; Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, pp. 135–37; Stoliarova,
“Мария Дмитриевна,” pp. 62–65; Rowell, “Between Lithuania and Ruś,” pp. 16–17.
93  Klug, “Fürstentum Tver’,” p. 74; Viktor V. Nizov, “К вопросу о социально-политической
борьбе в Новгороде в 1296 г.,” in Новгородский край. Материалы научный конфе­
ренции, ed. Vasilii F. Andreev (Leningrad, 1984), pp. 181–86.
254 chapter 6

13th century. The chronicles of Pskov reveal that “in January 1285 the Germans
killed the tribute collectors from Pskov, 40 men, in Adsel”.94 An inventory of
losses suffered by German merchants in Rus’ compiled a few decades later may
throw some light on what happened. The Pskovians are said to have confis-
cated assets from the merchants worth 40 or 60 marks in 1288 out of revenge
for the death of Pskovians in Adsel at the hands of the Teutonic Knight Otto
Paschedach with “men from Rositten” (perhaps meaning with the bailiff of
Rositten and his men).95 Although the years stated in the accounts do not quite
coincide—either could be wrong—we are clearly dealing here with one and
the same incident. The aim of the reprisals against the merchants was to influ-
ence the negotiations that followed the killing of the tribute collectors. Adsel
had been within the Order’s territory even under Bishop Albert, and the castle
at Rositten had also already been built by the 1280s, but the question is why the
“men from Rositten” were in Adsel? Rositten lies some 100 km south of Adsel
Land and the areas were separated by the archbishop’s territory. We also do
not know whether Pskov’s representatives had the right to collect the tribute
themselves or whether the Order dealt with this and was then to hand it over.96
The killing of the tribute collectors would make sense if the latter were the
case. This act of violence in 1285 on no account meant the end of the duty to
pay tribute. We do not know when this occurred.
In 1277 the Russians had arrested German merchants, killed them on the
Daugava River, and seized their assets. This constituted a violation “of kissings
of the cross and confirmations of peace”. In their letter to the merchants of
the Baltic cities, all the territorial lords of Livonia and the Danish captain pre-
siding in Reval proclaimed that responsibility for what had occurred must be
borne not by the Russians, but the Lithuanians. The attack had taken place
under their rule and they had divided up the booty, which they could use to
wage war on Livonia. In the same letter the territorial lords expressed their
regret over injustices meted out to the merchants in Novgorod. They were of
the opinion that the marketplace ( forum mercandi) should be moved to a suit-
able place, either in Livonia or Estonia, and for this they needed the consent of

94  PL 1, pp. 13–14; PL 2, pp. 22, 88. The (stone) castle of Marienburg had not been built at that
point. See Bartholomäus Hoeneke, Liivimaa noorem riimkroonika p. 72. On the date, see
Bonnell, Russisch-liwländische Chronographie, commentary p. 124.
95  H UB 3, p. 424 no. 187; LUB 6, no. 2770.
96  See Keussler, Ausgang, p. 77. The castle of Ludsen is mentioned for the first time in the
documents in 1433. See LUB 8, no. 746. Nazarova, “Псков и Ливония,” pp. 604–05, asks
whether the tribute collectors had not arrived late or for the second time in Adsel.
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 255

the ­merchants.97 The events on the Daugava can be linked to the war between
the Teutonic Order and Traidenis at the end of the 1270s; on that occasion Rus’
acted partly as the ally and subject of the Lithuanians.98 This incident and
vaguely described difficulties in Novgorod (which might have occurred earlier)
enabled the territorial lords to demand that the towns move their business
to Livonia, in other words under their control and supervision. The merchant
towns agreed to the trade embargo, wishing to use the opportunity to settle a
dispute in Novgorod and show their willingness to cooperate with the Livonian
powers. But the trade embargo was aimed against Novgorod, and the trade
along the Daugava is no longer mentioned in this document.99 At the begin-
ning of 1278 Archbishop Johannes of Riga, Ernst von Ratzeburg, master of the
Livonian Order, and the Danish captain in charge in Reval sent a letter drafted
in Riga, also in the name of Bishop Frederick of Dorpat and Bishop Hermann
of Ösel, to Lübeck and all the Baltic towns thanking them for their decision to
enforce the blockade against Rus’ and reiterating their intention to prohibit
the merchants from trading in Rus’ as from Easter. Trade in Livonia would be
conducted as before.100 This embargo was instigated by the Livonian territo-
rial lords and for that reason did not exactly correspond to the interests of the
merchants. Relocating trade to Livonia meant that the territorial lords would
be able to control it better and more effectively. Although the merchants had
to show themselves satisfied with the trade embargo, it is not known what
influence this might have had on relations between Livonia and Rus’.101 In 1282
the cities of Riga and Lübeck and the German merchant community in Visby
entered into a treaty with a term of eight years whose aim was the protection
of merchants travelling from Lübeck and the straits of Denmark to Novgorod.102
This treaty may have been aimed against the territorial lords.
The archbishop of Riga, Johannes von Vechten, wrote to Lübeck in 1287
explaining that the Rigans, whom Lübeck blamed for the loss of goods, were
not at fault. This referred to a peace that had been entered into by Archbishop
Johannes (1273/74–84), Ernst (d. 1279), the Order’s provincial master, the city
of Riga, and Grand Duke Traidenis of Lithuania and his subjects. The grand
duke had not abided by this treaty, having attacked Livonia. The goods of a
merchant from Münster, who had set off up the Daugava at his own risk, had

97  L UB 1, no. 452. Cf. LUB 1, no. 453; HUB 1, no. 786.
98  Rowell, “Between Lithuania and Ruś,” p. 13; LR, lines 8208–94.
99  L UB 6, no. 2766.
100  L UB 1, nos. 457–58; LUR, nos. 1213–14; cf. no. 1221a.
101  See Goetz, Deutsch-Russische Handelsgeschichte, pp. 52–54, 457–58.
102  D D 2/3, no. 47; LUB 1, no. 481.
256 chapter 6

been lost as a result of this attack. Perhaps the merchants of Vitebsk had also
complained about the Rigans in relation to the same incident at least around
the same time.103 In 1288 and 1292 German merchants suffered losses while
travelling between Novgorod and Pskov. As we have already mentioned, the
culprits in 1288 were the Pskovians, who had taken revenge for the killing of
Pskovians in Adsel by launching these raids.104 These incidents may to some
extent be coincidence but the size of the losses and the stress on the element
of vengeance suggest that they may indeed have been planned acts of violence.
The conflicts in Karelia and probably also in Votia at the end of the
13th century are linked to trade issues. According to the Novgorod Chronicle,
Titmanovich (see p. 230) built his “father’s castle” on the eastern bank of the
Narva River in 1294. In response, the Novgorodians burned down the castle dur-
ing their campaign and occupied his “large village” (село его великое), which
may have been the centre of Kivel’s possessions, burning it to the ground too.105
The Vironian vassal then attempted to rebuild the castle first erected in 1256
and later abandoned or destroyed. At this time Novgorod had strengthened its
presence in Votia even further. The Novgorodian princes and the city fortified
Koporye in 1279, 1280, and 1297. Thereafter Koporye was Novgorod’s perma-
nent stronghold on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland.106 The Novgorod
Chronicle sees the building of the castle by Titmanovich as a private undertak-
ing by a vassal. However, it is apparent from the letter of February 1296 from
the Estonian vassals to the Danish king that some vassals had robbed the mer-
chants beyond the Narva River, in iurisdiccione Rutenica. It was said that the
danger of assault lay from Russians.107 Not only the vassals’ claims to power
but also the destruction of the castle of Kivel can be identified in this report.

103  L UB 1, no. 507; HUB 1, no. 1015; LUB 6, no. 3051. Cf. LUB 6, no. 3052; HUB 1, no. 1028.
104  H UB 3, 424 no. 187; LUB 6, no. 2770. See Paul von der Osten-Sacken, “Der Hansehandel mit
Pleskau bis zur Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts,” in Beiträge zur russischen Geschichte. Theodor
Schiemann zum 60. Geburtstage, ed. Otto Hötzsch (Berlin, 1907), pp. 38, 66; Rowell,
“Between Lithuania and Ruś,” p. 13; Andrei A. Zaliznjak, Irina O. Kolosova and Inga K.
Labutina, “Псковские берестяные грамоты 6 и 7,” in Российская археология 1993, 1,
pp. 196–210.
105  N L1, p. 328. On the identity of “Titmanovich” (Титмановиць), see Goetze, Albert Suerbeer,
pp. 154–55; Süvalep, Taani-aegne Narva, pp. 15–18; Stern, “Dorpat-Pleskauer Kämpfe,”
pp. 101–02.
106  See Ianin, Новгород и Литва, pp. 91–92; cf. Andrei V. Kuzmin, “Князья Белоозера в
Новгороде Великом: миф и реальность ХIV в.,” in Прошлое Новгорода и Новгородской
земли. Материалы научной конференции 2001–2002 гг., vol. 1, ed. Vasilii F. Andreev
(Velikii Novgorod, 2002), pp. 89–90.
107  D D 2/4, no. 199; LUB 3, no. 562a.
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 257

At the same time there was fighting between the Swedish and Novgorod
rulers in Karelia and in the river Neva region. Western sources in general still
regarded the Karelians as pagans. In 1275 Pope Gregory X wrote a letter at the
request of the king of Sweden to the archbishop of Uppsala and his suffragans
urging them to fight “against the pagans of Karelia, Ingria, Lapland, and Votia”.108
The pope also forbade at the king’s request supplying these pagans with
“weapons, iron, wood, and other things that could inflict harm on Christians”,109
threatening with excommunication anyone who disobeyed. The ban on the
import of wood naturally originated from the Mediterranean region with its
scarcity of forests. Similar prohibitions on selling arms to the pagans had ear-
lier been issued by Innocent IV110 and Urban IV111 for the Baltic. As with this
ban, they were aimed against the pagans, not Rus’. The Swedish measure was
tied to the ongoing or planned conflicts in Karelia.
Prince Dmitrii Aleksandrovich and the Novgorodians attacked Karelia
in 1278. During the next few years the Swedes conducted campaigns to Lake
Ladoga and Karelia, while the Novgorodians were back in Tavastia in 1292.
The next year Swedish troops built the castle of Viborg during the so-called
Third Crusade, which the Novgorodians were unable to capture, although
Sweden’s plan to build a castle at Kexholm in 1295 failed. Fifteen years later
the Novgorodians built their own castle of Korela on the same site. The Swedes
were also unsuccessful in trying to build a fort on the river Neva. The castle
of Landskrona built there by the Swedes in 1300 had already been occupied a
year later by the troops of Grand Prince Andrei Aleksandrovich and Novgorod.112
There is no evidence that the Roman curia approved these military offensives.113
The possible venture of Titmanovich, the son of Dietrich von Kivel, in Votia
fits in well with contemporary Swedish operations in Karelia. John Lind has

108  F MU 8, no. 6568; ST 1, no. 78.

109  F MU 1, no. 151; ST 1, no. 79.
110  L UB 1, nos. 201, 257; PUB 1/1, no. 275.
111  L UB 1, no. 371. In 1285 King Magnus of Sweden issued a similar provision regarding the
Karelians. See ST 1, no. 141.
112  N L1, pp. 91, 330: “The same year (1300/6808) the Swedes came from beyond sea in great
strength into the Neva; they brought masters from their own land, and they brought a
special master from great Rome from the Pope, and they estabhshed a town at the mouth
of the river Okhta on the Neva”. Cf. Shaskolskii, Борьба Руси за сохранение выхода, p. 30;
Anna L. Khoroshkevich, “Католики в представлениях русских летописцев ХIV–ХV вв.,”
in Katolicyzm w Rosij i Prawosławie w Polsce (XI–XX w), ed. Juliusz Bardach et al. (Warsaw,
1997), p. 37; Lindkvist, “Crusades,” pp. 124–25.
113  See Lind, “Consequences,” pp. 143–44.
258 chapter 6

put forward the hypothesis that Kivel and Sweden worked together to gain con-
trol of the two trade routes in the Gulf of Finland leading to Novgorod.114 But
the brief account in the chronicles does not allow general conclusions to be
drawn. Nonetheless, it can be established that Kivel, a leading north Estonian
vassal, was well versed in the political situation.
As part of the rivalry between Sweden and Denmark, King Erik Menved
of Denmark (1286–1319) granted trade freedoms to the merchants of Lübeck,
Gotland, and all Baltic towns in 1294. Crucial was the right to use the land route
in Estonia via Vironia and crossing the Narva River towards Novgorod. This was
in fact a reaction to the reinforcement of Swedish control and the insecure
conditions along the river Neva.115 The counter-privilege granted by King Birger
of Sweden (d. 1321) to Lübeck and the Baltic towns the following year was not
as extensive. The king announced that he had converted the pagan Karelians
to the Catholic faith and had built the castle of Viborg in their land for the
glory of God and the Virgin, the protection of the kingdom, and to guarantee
seafaring and peace. The Karelians were said to have received support in their
unbelief from the Russians, who were only interested in their worldly goods
and had no fear of God. The Russians were thus regarded as unbelievers in this
text. The king confirmed that Viborg was not permitted to harm the merchants
and promised them that next spring before Midsummer’s Day and for another
year afterwards they would be able to travel freely to Novgorod, on condition,
however, that they neither supplied the Russians with weapons, iron, steel, or
similar goods nor gave them any counsel that could inflict harm on the king.
The king did not promise Russian ships an escort in the event of war; normally
this would have been up to three men per barge.116 The interests of the trading
towns and Sweden were therefore at odds in this struggle, whereas those of
Denmark and Novgorod tended to be compatible. The latter found expression
in the treaty concluded in 1302 between Denmark and Novgorod (see p. 269).117
The increasing significance of the land route through Vironia and Votia gave
greater importance to these regions.

114  Lind, “Den dansk-russiske traktat,” p. 7.

115  D D 2/4, no. 143; LUB 1, no. 555. See also Kivimiae, “Была ли Нарва,” p. 117.
116  H UB 1, no. 1174; LUB 1, no. 559.
117  See Lind, “Den dansk-russiske traktat,” pp. 14, 30; Erik Lönnroth, “Der Kampf um die
Seeherrschaft in Nordeuropa um 1300,” Hansische Geschichtsblätter 109 (1991), 11–12.
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 259

6.5 The Internal Conflict in Livonia

The conflict between the Teutonic Order in Livonia and the Samogitians,
Lithuanians, and Semgallians continued in the 1280s. Following campaigns
with heavy losses on both sides, the Order was finally able to conquer Semgallia
by c. 1290. This marked virtually the final extent of Old Livonia, although its bor-
ders to the south and south-west would always be somewhat disputed. These
conflicts forced the Livonian territorial lords to cooperate with one another to
a certain extent. There were nevertheless ongoing tensions between the arch-
bishop of Riga and the Livonian Order, although they did not always come to
the fore. One of the key areas of friction between the archbishop and the Order
was control of the city of Riga. The city, which had been founded by Bishop
Albert before the Order of the Sword Brothers, had become prosperous in a
short space of time. In 1274 the Teutonic Order received a charter from Rudolf I,
the king of Germany, which contained a fictitious account transferring rule
of Riga to it.118 Hence the Order claimed lordship over the town. The conflicts
between the city and the Order had intensified by the end of the 13th century.119
About 1282 the attempt by the archbishop to persuade the Lithuanian prince
Dovmont (d. 1285)120 to convert to Christianity failed. This could have strength-
ened the archbishop’s position vis-à-vis the Order had he succeeded. The arch-
bishop and the Order promised in 1292 to recognize the other’s rights and
support one another,121 but the Order clearly had the dominant role in agree-
ing the treaty.
The tensions that had been building up over the years in Livonia came to a
head in Riga in early 1297. The war to come was sparked by a relatively trivial
incident. The city of Riga had begun to shore up the river banks to protect itself
against the flooding of the Daugava that occurred early in the year. A bridge
was built across the Riga River to make construction work easier. However, this
had the effect of blocking the free access of shipping to the Order’s ­castle, then

118  L UB 1, no. 445.

119  Benninghoven, “Zur Rolle,” p. 182.
120  Zeugenverhör, p. 29 witness VII, para. 34; cf. p. 210; Michał Giedroyć, “The Arrival of
Christianity in Lithuania: Between Rome and Byzantium (1281–1341),” OSP, New Series
20 (1987), 1–3. The possibility that relations between the Teutonic Order and the king of
Denmark were strained is further suggested by the transumpt issued in 1282 by the arch-
bishop of Riga, the abbot of Dünamünde, and the mendicant orders of Riga of the confir-
mation of the Treaty of Stensby by Innocent IV. See DD 2/3, no. 22; LUR, nos. 1259–60.
121  L UB 1, nos. 544–45.
260 chapter 6

located in the eastern part of the city. When members of the order unilater-
ally opened a passageway in the bridge, in response to which the city council
made enquiries with the Order’s castle commander, Bruno (d. 1298), the pro-
vincial master of the Order, ordered the destruction of the bridge and revoked
all existing privileges from the Order enjoyed by the city residents. Both parties
initially resolved to postpone the resolution of the dispute until the return of
Archbishop Johannes, who was abroad at the time, but war with the Order had
broken out by the summer. An agreement regarding a truce had been reached
in November as a result of the mediation of the Livonian bishops and the north
German towns, but by the end of the year the Order was no longer prepared
to extend the agreement. Its representatives justified this on the grounds
that the archbishop of Riga, the bishops of Dorpat and Ösel, and the city of
Riga had joined in an alliance against the Order. The Order announced the
end of the truce to the bishops and seized the castle of Leal, which it admin-
istered together with the bishop of Ösel. After the archbishop too had suf-
fered a defeat, the bishop of Dorpat left the coalition set up against the Order
as a consequence. Archbishop Johannes was imprisoned for some time and
his castles of Treyden and Kokenhusen occupied by the Order. It was in these
circumstances that the city and cathedral chapter of Riga was forced to ask
pagan Lithuania for help.
In 1298 Lithuanians, in part together with the city of Riga, launched a num-
ber of attacks on the Order’s territory, but met defeat at the hands of a contin-
gent that had arrived from Prussia. At the beginning of 1299 a new truce was
agreed in Lübeck thanks to the mediation of the Hanseatic towns. When in 1305
the monastery of Dünamünde was sold by the Cistercian Order to the Teutonic
Order on the pretext that the Cistercians were not capable of defending their
possessions from the Lithuanians, the city of Riga called the Lithuanians into
the country to act against the Order, but the latter defeated them near Riga in
1307. Despite these setbacks the alliance against the Order held together over
the new few years. In 1309 a mediation attempt by the bishops of Reval and
Dorpat failed: the city of Riga insisted on the alliance with the Lithuanians
as long as the monastery of Dünamünde continued in the Order’s possession.
Not until June 1313 was peace reached between the Order and the city of Riga.
Relations between Lithuania and Livonia themselves played an increasingly
important role from the beginning of the 14th century in the relationship
between Livonia and Rus’, a development also reflected in the language used
in the sources to describe them.
The Order was itself involved in trade, including Lithuanian trade. The com-
petition in trade was one of the causes of the conflict between the city and the
Order. In the 13th and 14th centuries Riga was the centre of trade for the whole
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 261

of Lithuania; both the city and the Order conducted trade with the Lithuanians
and came into close contact with them as a result.122 The city’s regular resi-
dents included not only Russians, but also Lithuanians. The Lithuanians were
paradoxically lucrative trading partners for the Teutonic Order, given that it
was actually a crusading institution set up against them and in the name of the
crusade, whereby its position vis-à-vis its commercial rivals was guaranteed by
privileges granted by the pope.123
Although the Livonian ‘civil’ war had been triggered by the clash between
the city of Riga and the Teutonic Order, in reality it was a conflict between ter-
ritorial lords, above all between the Teutonic Order and archbishop of Riga.
Both sides claimed supremacy in Livonia, with the Order undoubtedly the
militarily stronger of the two. Apart from the fact that there was no absolute
agreement among the Order’s rivals, even together they would not have been
in a position to defeat the Order as a military organization; thus the archbishop
and the city had no choice but to seek outside help. The only possible sources
of military aid were the Lithuanian and Russian princes.
On the eve of the internal Livonian conflict relations between the Order and
the bishop of Ösel deteriorated over various territorial claims. The Order pro-
ceeded to occupy the bishopric, forcing the bishop to renounce the support
of the city of Riga and its archbishop.124 Theodoric Vyshusen, who supported
the Order, became bishop of Dorpat in 1302.125 Archbishop Frederick Pernstein
later considered his appointment illegal.126 Another potential, Catholic source
of help for the Rigan camp was Denmark. At the turn of the 13th and 14th cen-
turies King Erik Menved of Denmark was able to strengthen his position on
the southern Baltic coast, and the internal conflict in Livonia enabled him
to reinforce his position there as well. The cathedral chapter and city of Riga
entered into an alliance with the king in 1298 according to which the king

122  On the Teutonic Order’s trading activities in Livonia in the 13th century, see Bunge, Stadt
Riga, pp. 20–23, 75; Goetz, Deutsch-Russische Handelsgeschichte; p. 459; Zenonas Ivinskis,
“Die Handelsbeziehungen Litauens mit Riga im 14. Jahrhundert,” in Conventus primus his-
toricorum Balticorum Rigae, 16.–20.VIII.1937. Acta et relata (Riga, 1938), pp. 276–79; Vilho
Niitemaa, Der Binnenhandel in der Politik der livländischen Städte im Mittelalter (Helsinki,
1952) (Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemian Toimituksia Serie B, 76/2), pp. 62–67; Rennkamp,
Studien, pp. 232–34; Hellmann, “Der Deutsche Orden und die Stadt Riga,” pp. 16–17;
Rowell, Lithuania, pp. 57–59, 75–79.
123  Mažeika, “Of cabbages and knights,” pp. 72–76.
124  Busch, Nachgelassene Schriften, pp. 46–69.
125  Schonebohm, “Besetzung,” p. 340. This would also explain why the bishop of Dorpat in
particular funded the reconstruction of the Dünaburg.
126  Zeugenverhör, p. XII.
262 chapter 6

would receive the territories of Semgallia, Gerzike, and Nalsen in return for his
help in the conflict with the Order. These were areas that belonged to vassals
allied with the Order at the time (Semgallia, Gerzike), or that could not be won
from Lithuania (Nalsen). The king of Denmark thus clearly wished to control
not only the northern trade route with Rus’, but also the Daugava route.127
Despite the great tension within Livonia, the Livonian army embarked on a
campaign against Rus’: The Order forced the bishopric of Dorpat to leave the
coalition against it, and they were already advancing together against Pskov
in 1299. On 8 February that year the bishop of Dorpat issued a transumpt of
the charter relating to Iaroslav Vladimirovich’s inheritance (see p. 166) and
confirmed to the Order its claim to possession of half of Pskov’s territory.
This action was justified on the grounds that “we are unjustly forced to bear
without reason the pressure and attacks of wild tyranny from the Russians,
who have devastated with burning and plunder the majority of our dioceses”.128
It would appear from this that the Russians (Pskovians?) had invaded the bish-
opric of Dorpat. The question is when this occurred, whether there was in fact
a Russian attack on Dorpat in the 1290s, or whether unstable relations and
minor border skirmishes are reflected in this account.129
There is, however, indeed a reference to a confrontation that took place
shortly before. In 1298 German merchants on the way to Novgorod were robbed
in Poloco, that is, perhaps on the river Polonka near Porkhov. Representatives
of the bishop of Dorpat and the Teutonic Order ( fratres) then met with those
from Novgorod and Pskov. The Novgorodians and the Pskovians promised, by
kissing the cross, to repair the damage. Part of the booty had been distributed
to the “Lithuanians”, who it follows must have taken part in the ambush. But
the merchants were robbed once again after this agreement, nor were the
envoys’ costs of delegation reimbursed as was customary.130 The participa-
tion by the Order and the bishop in the discussion of the robbery of German
merchants as well as the attack by Lithuania on two occasions suggest that
the incident must have been of political significance. One other source points
towards a complex trade conflict around this time: about fifteen years later the
Order attempted to defend itself from certain accusations, whose details are
not known, with the story that the Lithuanians had once robbed merchants
from Riga and other towns on the way to Novgorod, but that the city residents

127  See Lind, “Den dansk-russiske traktat,” pp. 16–19, 30–31; Johansen, “Riga-Wisby-Urkunde,”
pp. 106–08; DD 2/4, nos. 320–21; LUB 1, nos. 572–73.
128  L UB 3, no. 580a; Schirren, Verzeichniss, p. 2; p. 4, no. 38.
129  See Stern, “Dorpat-Pleskauer Kämpfe,” pp. 100–02.
130  H UB 3, 424, no. 187; LUB 6, no. 2770. See Osten-Sacken, “Hansehandel,” p. 66.
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 263

of Riga had claimed that the culprits were Russians. The trading towns had
then imposed a trade embargo on Novgorod, but this was not complied with
and so was then revoked.131 It appears that Riga had good reason to blame the
Order which probably exploited a smaller, ‘routine’ trading conflict for its own
political ends, thus creating complications for the towns.
At the beginning of 1299 the Livonian master of the Order was petitioning
for support from Lübeck on the basis of the trade privilege granted to this city.
He was concerned that the Order in Livonia faced the risk of hostility from
Russians and pagans, or their allies. These allies should be understood to refer
to the city of Riga and its archbishop.132 The vita of Prince Dovmont does
indeed contain an account of the attack by Pskov on Estonian territory prior to
the Livonian counteroffensive of 1299. The attack is justified as retaliation for a
previous attack by the “Latins” meaning Livonians.133
In March 1299 the “Germans” burned the outskirts of Pskov and plun-
dered the monastery outside the city. Those defending the castle launched a
counter-attack led by Dovmont and won the ensuing battle. The men of the
Teutonic Order (вельневици, literally ‘the men of Fellin’) taken prisoner were
handed over by Dovmont to Grand Prince Andrei Aleksandrovich, who was
also prince of Novgorod.134 There is no mention of this attack in the Livonian
sources. The Order’s participation is mentioned in the vita of Dovmont and
the sources derived from it; the transumpt of 8 February mentioned above
confirmed the collaboration between the Order and bishopric of Dorpat.
Later on Pskov always took part in the internal Livonian conflict on Riga’s side.
Since the offensive against Pskov of March 1299 took place at the same time as
the fighting in Livonia, this attack should be seen in the same context. A pos-
sible cause of the dispute between the Order and Pskov may have been Adsel,
while the fishing rights to Lake Lämmijärv were disputed between Dorpat and
Pskov. Moreover, yet another ambush of merchants took place, which could

131  Zeugenverhör, pp. 205–06 supplement IX, paras. 289–98.

132  L UB 1, no. 576: “Si praeterea inter nos, fautores aut cooperatores nostros, ex una, et
Ruthenos seu paganos vel eorum fautores, coniunctim aut divisa, ex altera . . .”. On the
discord between Riga and Lübeck during this period, see Eckhard Groth, Das Verhältnis
der livländischen Städte zum Novgoroder Hansekontor im 14. Jahrhundert (Hamburg, 1999)
(Die Baltische Reihe 4), pp. 16–20.
133  P L 1, p. 4; PL 2, pp. 18, 86. Rusen took part in 1298 as allies of the city of Riga in the war
against the Teutonic Order. See Aufzeichnungen Albrechts, pp. 314–15. It is not known
whether they came from Pskov or the territory under Lithuanian control. Cf. Nazarova,
“Псков и Ливония,” p. 604.
134  P L 1, pp. 4, 14; PL 2, pp. 18, 22, 86–87; NL1, p. 329; cf. SL1, p. 365.
264 chapter 6

equally have provoked this offensive.135 What is unclear is when the second
assault on the merchants, mentioned above, took place, i.e. before or after
the siege of Pskov. The participation of the representatives of the bishop of
Dorpat and the Order in the trade negotiations leads us to think that the losses
incurred by the merchants in 1298 had already been discussed during later
talks when the territorial lords were attempting to resolve their disputes with
Pskov (although the sources do not contain any confirmation of peace after the
1299 campaign). The political ties between Novgorod and Pskov, which come
to light in the description of the events of 1299, can only confirm this theory.
In the same year Pskov was struck by an epidemic. Its victims included
Prince Dovmont, who the Novgorod chronicles say “had suffered for St Sophia
and the Holy Trinity”,136 i.e. he defended the interests of both Novgorod and
Pskov. After Dovmont’s death, Pskov remained tied to Grand Prince Andrei
Aleksandrovich. Between 1299 and 1304 one of Andrei’s followers, Fedor
Mikhailovich of Beloozero, became prince of Pskov, who, “after the enemy
troops had arrived, went away, leaving the city and paying no heed to the peti-
tions of Novgorod and Pskov”.137 Andrei was apparently attempting to prevent
the accession of a new Lithuanian prince to the throne of Pskov, but it emerged
that Novgorod was not satisfied with Fedor’s activity. It is hard to determine
what military campaign is being referred to here. There is no mention of a
military confrontation between Livonia and Pskov at this time. Fedor may have
taken part in the fighting between Novgorod and Sweden.138 Also conceivable
would be the use of force by a Lithuanian duke to enforce his entitlement to
Dovmont’s inheritance.
Grand Prince Andrei died in 1304. Mikhail Iaroslavich of Tver and Iurii
Danilovich of Moscow fought to succeed him as grand prince. Mikhail was
able to prevail in the eyes of the Horde. In 1307 he also attempted to enforce
his claims in Novgorod. In 1312, when Tver and Novgorod were at war, Mikhail
forced Novgorod to cede and pay a large sum in compensation for blocking the
transport routes east of the city.139 At this time Pskov continued to be ruled by
the grand prince of Vladimir, this now being Mikhail of Tver, and in 1309 or 1310

135  Stern, “Dorpat-Pleskauer Kämpfe,” p. 102.

136  N L1, pp. 90, 330; PL 1, pp. 4–5, 14; PL 2, pp. 18, 22, 86–87.
137  G VNP, no. 8; NA, no. 76 (dated 1305–07).
138  Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, pp. 156–58; Ianin, Средневековый Новгород, p. 259, 13; Nikolai S.
Borisov, Политика Московских князей. Конец ХIII–первая половина ХIV века (Moscow,
1999) (Труды Исторического факультета МГУ 4: серия 2, Исторические исследования
1), p. 134; Valerov, Новгород, pp. 218–24
139  Klug, “Fürstentum Tver’,” pp. 81–88; Borisov, Политика, pp. 135–36.
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 265

by his representative Ivan Fedorovich, whose provenance is unknown.140 In

1313 a certain Prince Boris was in Pskov, whose origins are unknown, but who
may have been connected to Mikhail Iaroslavich of Tver.141
In the same year Uzbek (d. 1342) acceded to the position of khan in the
Horde. Mikhail Iaroslavich remained at the Horde until 1315, while the war
between Novgorod and Sweden carried on. In Mikhail’s absence his rival, the
ruler of Moscow, Iurii Danilovich, and the latter’s ally Fedor of Rzhev offered
Novgorod their military support against Tver. The military clashes between
Tver and Novgorod came to an end during the famine of 1314–16. Mikhail,
who had returned from the Horde, defeated the Novgorodian army at Torzhok
in 1316, but immediately afterwards there was a revolt against Mikhail’s
rule in Novgorod. The Novgorod troops who were meant to muster against
Mikhail Iaroslavich included the contingent from Pskov. The struggle for rule
in Novgorod was necessary for the princes on financial grounds too, since it
guaranteed the fiscal revenues that enabled them to ascend to the throne of
grand prince and defend it. There was indeed an economic crisis precisely in
the second decade of 14th century both in Rus’ and Livonia, which might at
least partly explain the political tumult on both sides of Lake Peipus.142 There
were huge price increases in Novgorod and Pskov during 1303–04. Rus’ was
stricken by hunger in the years 1309–10, as a result of which it was not pos-
sible to pay the tribute to the Horde. There were revolts in Novgorod. A few
years later in 1314 a period of famine began in Rus’, Livonia, and the whole of
northern Europe, lasting until 1317. The internal war worsened Livonia’s eco-
nomic situation, above all for Riga, since the Daugava region was particularly
badly affected by the warfare.143 Trade along the Daugava continued to func-
tion despite this. This is evidenced by the trade treaties that were entered into
and confirmed. The validity of the treaty concluded in 1229 with Smolensk was
confirmed by the princes of Smolensk, Aleksandr Glebovich (1297–1313) and
Ivan Aleksandrovich (1313–58). Aleksandr seized power in Smolensk, having

140  Stoliarova, Свод, pp. 186–88, no. 167. He may have been a son of Fedor Mikhailovich.
141  Stoliarova, Свод, pp. 209–13, no. 196; Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, pp. 158–59; Valerov,
Новгород, p. 223.
142  Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, p. 159; Borisov, Политика, pp. 139–46. Cf. Danilevskii, Русские
земли, pp. 237–55.
143  Das Rigische Schuldbuch (1286–1352), ed. Hermann Hildebrand (St Petersburg, 1872),
p. lxxııı; Friedrich Benninghoven, “Ein Osnabrücker Fernhändlergeschlecht im Livland­
handel des 13. Jahrhunderts,” Hamburger mittel- und ostdeutsche Forschungen 4 (1963), 173–
81; Elena I. Muravskaia, “Торговые связи Риги с Полоцком, Витебском и Смоленском в
ХIII–ХIV вв.,” Latvijas PSR Zinātņu Akadēmijas Vēstis 1961, 2 (163), 39–42.
266 chapter 6

fought against his own uncle Fedor Rostislavich (d. 1299). His confirmation of
the treaty was probably related to this usurpation of power.144
Some historical studies have argued that Polotsk did not become defini-
tively subject to Lithuania until the beginning of the 14th century, after the
conflict between the Teutonic Order and Grand Duke Vytenis (c. 1295–1315).
This assertion, which is particularly firmly rooted in Russian historiogra-
phy thanks to Nikolai Karamzin, has no foundation and is based on Maciej
Stryjkowski’s account of the conquest of Polotsk by the Lithuanians in 1307.
This event was conflated by historians with accounts of the relations between
Polotsk and Livonia belonging to an earlier period, as well as of the Order’s
influence on Polotsk (see p. 206).145 The rapid expansion of the area under
Lithuanian control at the beginning of the 14th century was achieved mainly
through dynastic coalitions and political collaboration, not by means of mili-
tary conquest.146 There were thus different possible grades of dependency
of the Russian centres of power on the Lithuanian grand dukes. Polotsk had
been extremely closely allied with Lithuania since the time of Tautvila and
Gerdenis, even though members of the local dynasty would rule on the ground
from time to time. Around the turn of the century Iakov, the bishop of Polotsk,
was the ruler there. In a letter to the provost and city council of Riga he assured
them that he backed the peace agreed between Riga and its “son”, Grand Duke
Vytenis.147 The treaty referred to was apparently that agreed between the city
of Riga, the archbishopric, and Grand Duke Vytenis. In an attempt to justify
this treaty with the pagan ruler against the Christian Order, the council of
Riga, its cathedral chapter, the abbot of Dünamünde, the Rigan mendicant fri-
ars, the captain of the crusaders in Riga, and representatives of some other
cities publicly announced in March 1298 that the Lithuanian envoys had prom-
ised, despite the Order’s counter-actions, to convert to Christianity, just as

144  Ivanovs and Kuzņecovs, Smoļenskas-Rīgas aktis, pp. 645–66; LUB 6, no. 3057; LUR,
nos. 1490–91; Goetz, Deutsch-Russische Handelsverträge, pp. 334–35; Goetz, Deutsch-
Russische Handelsgeschichte, p. 460; Rennkamp, Studien, p. 217; Lenhoff and Martin,
“Smolensk after the Mongol Invasions,” 130–33.
145  As already pointed out by Bonnell, Russisch-liwländische Chronographie, commentary
p. 133. Cf. Stryjkowski, Kronika, vol. 1, p. 349; Хроники, p. 135. Cf. Karamzin, История,
vol. 4, pp. 100–01; Shtykhov, Древний Полоцк, pp. 14–15; Gorskii, Русские земли, p. 53;
Rowell, Lithuania, p. 78; Rogov, Русско-польские культурные связи, pp. 152–53;
Aleksandrov and Volodikhin, Борьба, p. 39.
146  Rowell, Lithuania, pp. 82–111.
147  P G 1, no. 3; LUB 6, no. 3056; Goetz, Deutsch-Russische Handelsverträge, pp. 330–32;
Rennkamp, Studien, pp. 214–17; Rowell, Lithuania, pp. 180–81.
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 267

Mindaugas had once done.148 Although we do not know whether Vytenis truly
gave expression to this desire to accept Christianity,149 this political collabora-
tion is indeed described using ecclesiastical terms. This was either for the good
or the bad of all Christians, regardless of how one looked at it.
Although the open hostilities and military campaigns ongoing since 1299
subsided for some time, there were still opposing factions in Livonia for whom
it was of the utmost importance to obtain support from outside. The joint
rebellion against King Erik Menved, who wished to restore Denmark’s leading
position in the Baltic, had the effect of bringing the Teutonic Order and the
Danish king’s vassals in Estonia closer. In 1303 King Erik gave Estonia to his
brother Christopher as a fief for six years, triggering outright opposition among
his Estonian vassals.150 In February 1304, in either Dorpat or Weißenstein, a
treaty of alliance was concluded between the Teutonic Order in Livonia, the
king of Denmark’s vassals in Estonia, and the bishoprics of Dorpat and Ösel.
The extant text shows that this alliance reflected above all the interests of the
Order and the vassals and was aimed against the city of Riga, the archbishop,
his allies, and the Danish king. One of the arguments used in the text by the
parties to justify their collaboration was Livonia’s location—“surrounded by
evil peoples, namely unbelieving Russians and pagan Lithuanians and other
enemies of Christianity”—which could be pernicious for the novella plantacio
of the faith. This was why the parties had agreed to fight together against all
attempts to change the position of the Danish king’s vassals in Estonia, as well
as against the archbishop and city of Riga and its internal and external allies,
hence also against “Lithuanian pagans or Russians”. By means of this treaty
the Teutonic Order forced its allies to support it, while also forbidding them
from helping their opponents in the event that any future court of arbitration
between Riga and the Order would find in favour of the former. This was a ref-
erence to the eventuality that if the Order, the bishops of Ösel and Dorpat or
the Danish vassals were, jointly or individually, to come into conflict with the
Russians “over borders or on other grounds”, a court of arbitration composed
of representatives from all the Livonian powers would be appointed to inves-
tigate the case. If this court were to decide that Livonia was in the right, all the
allies would have to go to war against the Russians; but if the Russians were
ruled to be right, the others were not to interfere in the conflict. Anyone who

148  L UB 1, no. 570. Cf. the Order’s perspective in Hermanni Chronicon, pp. 54–56.
149  Ivinskis, “Handelsbeziehungen,” p. 280; Giedroyć, “The Arrival of Christianity in Lithuania:
Between Rome and Byzantium,” pp. 10–11; Nikžentaitis, “Die litauische Gesellschaft,”
pp. 117–18.
150  D D 2/5, nos. 283–84; Skyum-Nielsen, “Estonia,” p. 122. Cf. Bunge, Herzogtum, pp. 46–47.
268 chapter 6

provoked an unjust (iniuste) war with the Russians would not receive support
from the other parties.151
The main purpose of this treaty was to undermine and isolate the arch-
bishop of Riga and his allies and to offer the northern Estonian vassals some-
thing in return for their support.152 The Teutonic Order retained its freedom
of action, but its partners were bound by their obligations under the treaty.
Rus’ and the Lithuanians appeared as potential allies of Riga. It can indeed be
assumed that Pskov’s troops also took part in the campaigns in 1298–99 in sup-
port of Riga (see p. 263). Potential border disputes with Rus’ were to be antici-
pated, as were various just and unjust wars against the Russian territories. The
allusion to border disputes concerned especially the situation of the bishop
of Dorpat.153 Such a possibility also suggests the intention on the part of the
Danish vassals and the bishop of Ösel of conquering the areas east of the Narva
River. It must of course be added that when the treaty was agreed neither
the bishop of Ösel nor the bishop of Dorpat were able to act independently of
the Order. The danger that issued from the pagans and threatened Danish pos-
sessions in Estonia is also mentioned in a letter from Boniface VIII dated March
1299, thus signifying that the plans to conquer Votia were still alive among the
Estonian vassals.154 In 1304 the bishops of Ösel and Dorpat issued a transumpt
of the Treaty of Stensby,155 which was intended to protect the Order from Erik
Menved’s ambitions. In 1301 Pope Boniface VIII released the bishopric of Reval
from the excommunication that had been imposed on the Danish state. In the
supplication in question the northern Estonian clergy and Bishop Henry of
Reval argued that the recently baptized people could apostatize, particularly
because they were surrounded by “Russians, Karelians, Ingrians, Votians, and
Lithuanians” and constantly incited to renounce their faith by them.156 They
thus justified their case with reference to all the peoples of a different faith
living nearby.
The Danish king in his rivalry with Sweden and the Order competed for
Novgorod’s support. It appears most likely that the treaty of alliance of 1304

151  D D 2/5, no. 298; cf. no. 299; AR 1, no. 1; LUB 2, no. 608.
152  Busch, Nachgelassene Schriften, p. 59; Jan Kostrzak, “Frühe Formen des altlivländischen
Landtages,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas N.F. 32 (1984), 169, 179–80; Priit Raudkivi,
Vana-Liivimaa maapäev. Ühe keskaegse struktuuri kujunemislugu (Tallinn, 2007), pp. 44–50.
153  Gernet, Verfassungsgeschichte, p. 107.
154  D D 2/5, no. 24; LUB 1, no. 581. The letter’s petitioners were evidently the king of Denmark’s
vassals in Estonia.
155  Schirren, Verzeichniss, p. 2; p. 4, no. 41; AR 1, no. 2.
156  D D 2/5, no. 159; LUB 1, no. 591. Cf. Skyum-Nielsen, “Estonia,” p. 116.
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 269

also contained the option of fighting against Novgorod. At Denmark’s ini-

tiative a treaty was concluded with Novgorod and Grand Prince Andrei
Aleksandrovich. A Russian embassy went to Reval or Denmark to confirm it
in 1302. The Russian embassy was represented by Andrei’s son (Boris?) and
“your relative Vladimir”,157 as he is described by Grand Prince Andrei in his
letter of accreditation addressed to the Danish king’s subjects in Reval. Since
the Novgorod chronicles relate this journey of the envoys “beyond the sea” to
Denmark, the treaty was not agreed with the Estonian vassals and it was prob-
ably also contrary to their aim of expanding their control east of the Narva
River. The interests of the Order and the northern Estonian vassals tended to
coincide on this point and this agreement motivated anti-Russian declarations
in the treaty of alliance of 1304.
Novgorod’s relations with the Hanseatic towns were turbulent in around
1300. A key issue for both was the Swedish king’s control of the river Neva.
An embassy from Lübeck was in Novgorod in 1300–01 to seek confirma-
tion of the peace. They discussed the difficulties in trading caused by the
construction of the fortress of Landskrona, on which point the positions
of Novgorod and the Hanseatic towns became closer.158 In the autumn and
winter of 1301 German merchants were again robbed between Novgorod
and Pskov. This time the Novgorodians must have been responsible, since
envoys were sent in the winter from Lübeck, Riga, and Gotland precisely to
Novgorod.159 The negotiations proved successful and Grand Prince Andrei
together with Novgorod assured the envoys that the German merchants had
three land routes and one waterway at their disposal. However, if the water-
way were not to prove safe enough, the grand prince was prepared to give the
merchants an escort.160 Perhaps there is a connection between the robbery
and the escort offered. This robbery was certainly not endorsed by the rulers.
Once the envoys had returned, however, German merchants fell victim to a
robbery en route from Narva to Novgorod.161 Perhaps Novgorodian merchants
in Riga were also robbed out of revenge in the early 14th century, for in a letter

157  N L1, pp. 91, 331; GVNP, no. 35; LUB 6, no. 3062; NA, no. 10. See Lind, “Den dansk-russiske
traktat,” pp. 4, 17–19, 29, 31. According to Lind, Vladimir was the baptismal name of
Boris and reference was made to the kinship between the ruling houses. In the 13th and
14th centuries both Vladimir and Boris were accepted as Christian names; despite this the
name at baptism and the dynastic name could be different.
158  G VNP, no. 33; HUB 1, no. 1345; LUB 6, no. 3060; NA, no. 8.
159  H UB 3, p. 425, no. 187; LUB 6, no. 2770.
160  G VNP, no. 34; LUB 6, no. 3061; NA, no. 9.
161  H UB 3, p. 425, no. 187; LUB 6, no. 2770.
270 chapter 6

Archbishop Feoktist of Novgorod (1299–1307) demanded compensation and

punishment of the culprits in line with the treaties in force.162
Lübeck held talks over the free exchange of goods on the Neva with King
Birger of Sweden as well. In November 1303 the king allowed trade to be con-
ducted with Rus’. This was on condition that the merchants be allowed to take
with them weapons, iron and steel, and such like only for private use, aside
from which trade was allowed only temporarily, that is, from Pentecost to
the next feast day.163 Erik Menved, his Danish rival who supported the transit
route through Estonia, granted the trading cities privileges that enabled them
to travel freely to Novgorod without such restrictions.164
The relations between Livonia and Rus’ were increasingly determined by
Lithuania by the end of the 13th century. The internal conflict in Livonia forced
all sides to search for allies, who were effectively to be founded primarily in
pagan Lithuania and Orthodox Rus’. This state of affairs created a remarkable
ambivalence between practical politics on the one hand and the rhetorical
patterns employed, which often resorted to the trope of dangerous and inhu-
man Russian schismatics.

6.6 Livonia and Rus’ in the 1320s

In the years 1322–23 the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas (1315/16–1341/42)

sent several letters to the Teutonic Order and the cities of Livonia.165 He sent
envoys to the king of Denmark, and Pope John XXII also received a letter. In
these letters the grand duke expressed his desire to reach a peace with all
Christians and receive papal recognition of his country’s borders, and indi-
cated his willingness to tolerate Christianity in his land. Had these wishes been
satisfied, they could have significantly strengthened Lithuania’s influence in
foreign affairs, thus ensuring its position among the major Christian powers of
Europe. From Livonia’s perspective, Gediminas’ letters signified that Lithuania’s
allies, i.e. the archbishopric and city of Riga, had been able to strengthen their
position relative to the Teutonic Order. Gediminas’ letter to the pope was also
aimed very explicitly against the Order insofar as it enumerated the Order’s

162  G VNP, no. 36; LUB 6, no. 3058. For the date, see NA, no. 7; cf. Lind, “Den dansk-russiske
traktat,” pp. 26–29.
163  S T 1, no. 155; LUB 3, no. 607a. See also ST 1, no. 180 (1313); LUB 3, no. 645c.
164  D D 2/5, nos. 365–66; 2/6, no. 85; LUB 2, no. 613; 3, no. 626a.
165  On the chronology and significance of the letters, see Rowell, Lithuania, pp. 195–228. Cf.
also PUB 2, nos. 461–72; Vetera monumenta Poloniae, nos. 290–300.
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 271

crimes against the Christians and the city of Riga. The fact that the complaints
of the city of Riga and archbishop against the Order coincided with those of
Gediminas has led some scholars to propose that these letters were not from
the grand duke at all, but were fabricated by the city of Riga, which was also,
incidentally, the view of the Teutonic Order.166 Although the letters are in fact
genuine, it is clear that Gediminas was on the side of the coalition opposed to
the Livonian Order. A peace concluded with Lithuania under the supervision
of the archbishop would amount to a defeat for the Order not only in its con-
flict with Lithuania, but also in terms of the internal Livonian conflict. More
to the point, it would no longer be possible to justify the existence and actions
of the Order with reference to the proximity of the pagans and the supposed
threat they posed.167 In the first half of 1323 Gediminas sent additional letters
to the trading towns, the mendicant friars, and especially to the Saxon prov-
inces of the mendicants. In them he proclaimed a policy of religious tolerance
and urged merchants, artisans, farmers, and knights to come to his land. About
the same time Gediminas sent another letter to the pope in which he promised
to believe in the triune God and recognize papal authority.
In August 1323 a meeting took place in Ermes between representatives of
the Rigan cathedral chapter and council, the mendicant orders, the Teutonic
Order, and Danish-controlled northern Estonia. It was jointly agreed to send
ambassadors to Wilno, where they met with the grand duke at the beginning
of September. On 2 October 1323 a peace treaty between Lithuania and Livonia
was signed for four years. Its parties were the representatives of the archbishop
and cathedral chapter of Riga, the bishops of Dorpat and Ösel, the Danish
authorities in northern Estonia, the Dominicans of Reval, and the Teutonic
Order. Since the Order had been manoeuvred into participating in the treaty
because of the diplomatic intrigues of its adversaries, it immediately began
to conduct a propaganda campaign against it. Moreover, the treaty had been
agreed by only the Livonian branch of the Order; the main powers in Prussia
were not party to it. The very same month as it was agreed the Prussian clergy
sent letters describing the Lithuanians’ crimes and endorsing the Order’s
refusal to observe the peace. The rulers in Livonia were also urged to oppose
the peace. The Order introduced reprisals against Gediminas’ ambassadors

166  See Stephen C. Rowell, “The Letters of Gediminas: ‘Gemachte Lüge’? Notes on a Contro­
versy,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas N.F. 41 (1993), 321–60. See also Hermanni
Chronicon, p. 61; Regesten verlorener Urkunden, pp. 7–8, nos. 26–27; Peter, Chronicon
III.356 (349)–III.359 (352), pp. 190–92. On the economic ties between Riga and Lithuania,
see Ivinskis, “Handelsbeziehungen,” pp. 281–82; Ivinskis, “Mindaugas,” p. 373.
167  Maschke, Der deutsche Orden, p. 64; Rowell, Lithuania, p. 230.
272 chapter 6

and overt confrontations had already begun by 1324 on the Order’s frontier
with Lithuania. In August 1324, however, the pope confirmed the Wilno peace
treaty on the condition that the grand duke was baptized straightaway. The
papal legates who were on their way to Gediminas arrived in Riga in October.
Their representatives arrived in Wilno at the beginning of November, only
to be told that Gediminas did not wish to be baptized; he declared that his
earlier letters should not be interpreted in this way. The legates remained in
Livonia until early the following year. They accompanied the archbishop of
Riga, Frederick Pernstein, on the journey to Avignon after he had excommuni-
cated the Teutonic Order.
The story of Gediminas’ baptism is closely connected to the relations
between the Livonian and Russian territories as well as the relations between
Catholicism and Orthodoxy in this period.168 In their report the legates’ repre-
sentatives mention that, in addition to the pagan opposition to Catholicization,
there was also another possible reason why Gediminas had renounced bap-
tism, this being none other than the opposition of the Russians in Lithuania.169
This may very well be the case given the large proportion of Orthodox faith-
ful among the population living in the Lithuanian grand duchy. The fact that
Gediminas called himself Letwinorum et multorum Ruthenorum rex170 may
have meant that he was regarded in the curia, if only for a time, as a schis-
matic rather than a pagan. Certainly the rhetoric used by the pope in his letter
to Gediminas dated 1 June 1324171 is targeted against schismatics, not pagans.
The section on St Peter as the church’s sole authority and Gediminas’ wish
“to renounce fully the errors of the schismatics” is drawn from earlier letters
to the south-west Russian princes and Georgian king advocating the union of
the churches.172 This is a good example of the way documents were drafted in

168  Rowell, “Letters,” p. 321; Rowell, Lithuania, pp. 202–03; Rasa J. Mažeika and Stephen C.
Rowell, “Zelatores maximi: Pope John XXII, Archbishop Frederick of Riga and the Baltic
Mission 1305–1340,” Archivum historiae pontificiae 31 (1993), 36; Alvydas Nikžentaitis,
“Wirtschaftliche und politische Motive in den Briefen des Großfürsten Gedimin an die
norddeutschen Städte sowie an die Orden der Dominika­ner und Franziskaner (26. Mai
1323),” in Zwischen Lübeck und Novgorod. Wirt­schaft, Politik und Kultur im Ostseeraum
vom frühen Mittelalter bis ins 20. Jahrhundert. Norbert Angermann zum 60. Geburtstag, ed.
Ortwin Pelc and Gertrud Pickhan (Lüneburg, 1996), p. 127.
169  R LU, no. 67. See Giedroyć, “The Arrival of Christianity in Lithuania: Between Rome and
Byzantium,” pp. 19–28; Nikžentaitis, “Die litauische Gesellschaft,” p. 118; Rowell, Lithuania,
pp. 138–39, 224–25.
170  L UB 2, no. 687.
171  L UB 2, no. 703.
172  See DPR, no. 36; Mažeika and Rowell, “Zelatores,” pp. 43–44.
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 273

practice: accurate information was not used in drawing up these texts at the
curia even when it was available, in this case from Archbishop Frederick. There
was apparently no need for such information, with preference being given to
the preexisting formulas.173 The action had originated in Lithuania; the papal
curia reacted to it without any independent initiative.174
In the second decade of the 14th century Pskov appears constantly in the
Novgorod chronicles as Novgorod’s ally. In 1316 troops from Pskov were part
of the Novgorod force that mustered against Grand Prince Mikhail Iaroslavich
of Tver. The subsequent peace treaty mentions Mikhail’s opponents as both
Novgorod and Pskov.175 In the autumn of 1317 Mikhail’s rival Iurii Danilovich
of Moscow returned to Rus’. Some years previously he had been summoned by
the khan and was the first Moscow prince to receive the right from the Horde
to hold the position of grand prince of Vladimir. Iurii had, moreover, married
the sister of Uzbek Khan. In the battle between the two, however, Iurii was
defeated in 1318 and forced to flee to Novgorod. Peace was agreed soon after,
brought about partly by Archbishop Davyd of Novgorod and imposed through
pressure exerted by the troops of Pskov and Novgorod. Mikhail and Iurii both
travelled to the Horde, where Mikhail was killed. Grand Prince Iurii sent his
brother Afanasii to Novgorod to represent him there.176 The war between Tver
and Moscow continued, this time Iurii Danilovich’s opponent was Mikhail’s
son Dmitrii.
In 1322 Iurii Danilovich was in Novgorod, from where he embarked on an
unsuccessful campaign to Viborg. At the same time Dmitrii Mikhailovich
obtained the title of grand prince from the Horde. Iurii was defeated at the
Battle of Urdoma and obliged to flee to Pskov, “but the Lithuanian duke Davyd
was in Pskov [then]”.177 Thus during the years 1319–22 Pskov, as a result of the
influence of the Russian grand prince, itself fell under Lithuanian influence,
and Duke Davyd of Grodno became its ruler. Davyd was one of the closest com-
panions of Grand Duke Gediminas and Grodno, as a frontier castle, played a
key role for Lithuania in its relations with Poland and the Teutonic Order.178

173  On the connections between Gediminas’ letters and the state of affairs in Riga on the one
hand with Europe-wide politics, see Ulrich Niess, Hochmeister Karl von Trier (1311–1324).
Stationen einer Karriere im Deutschen Orden (Marburg, 1992) (Quellen und Studien zur
Geschichte des Deutschen Ordens 47), pp. 160–61; Rowell, Lithuania, pp. 212–21; Mažeika
and Rowell, “Zelatores,” pp. 34–42.
174  Zanke, Johannes XXII., pp. 113–14.
175  G VNP, no. 11; NA, pp. 155–61, nos. 79–80.
176  N L1, pp. 94–96, 337–38.
177  N L1, pp. 96–97, 339. See also Borisov, Политика, pp. 174–76.
178  Rowell, “Between Lithuania and Ruś,” p. 21; Rowell, Lithuania, pp. 82–83, 179.
274 chapter 6

In 1320 a daughter of Grand Duke Gediminas had married Prince Dmitrii

Mikhailovich of Tver, making Lithuania more allied with Iurii’s opponents.
The enemy coalitions facing one another on the eastern shores of the Baltic
Sea in the 1320s were the Teutonic Order and Novgorod on the one side, and
Lithuania, Pskov, and their allies in Livonia on the other. It is for this reason that
Iurii’s flight to Pskov is somewhat unexpected because it ostensibly supported
his enemies.179 But he probably fled there after his defeat, since this frontier
town did not belong to the area under Mongol control. He soon returned to
Novgorod, where he led hostile operations against the Swedes. That same year,
1323, the Lithuanian army plundered the river Lovat region in the Novgorod
Land.180
According to the Novgorod Chronicle, Davyd was prince of Pskov when
Iurii Danilovich arrived, whereas in the Pskovian chronicles Davyd was first
appointed prince of Pskov during Iurii’s stay, after the “Germans” had attacked
the territories on the eastern shore of Lake Peipus and on the Narva River.181
The chronicles further relate that Davyd was not called from Lithuania to be
prince, but had already been recognized as such earlier. It would appear that
the later chronicle tradition of Pskov aimed to defend the calling of a prince
from Lithuania rather than Moscow, given that in the 15th century the princes
of Pskov generally came from Moscow.
Nor was the Livonian attack on the region of Gdov or the raids on the Narva
fishermen and the merchants on Lake Peipus by any means unexpected dur-
ing the period in which the peace treaty was in force, as the Russian chronicles
claim. The Lithuanians had already attacked the bishopric of Dorpat, near
Kirrumpäh, in March 1322.182 Pskov also probably took part in this campaign. It
is true that Pskov was an ‘independent’ territory, but it was still dependent on
developments in Lithuania. While the Pskovian chronicles may be strictly right
in blaming Livonia for violating the peace, Pskov had in fact as a Lithuanian
dependency itself already attacked earlier. This attack may have been led
by Davyd of Grodno, who was again called to Pskov in 1322–23 f­ollowing the

179  Nikolai Borisov’s attempted explanation (Borisov, Политика, pp. 174–178) is based on a
source that is unreliable in this context (Ekaterina, Сочинения на основании подлинных
рукописей, ed. Aleksandr N. Pypin, vol. 11 (St Petersburg, 1906), pp. 83–86) and can be
discarded. Cf. NL1, pp. 96–97, 338–39; PL 1, pp. 15–16; PL 2, pp. 22–23, 89–90.
180  N L1, pp. 97, 339.
181  P L 1, p. 15; PL 2, pp. 22, 89.
182  Konstantin Höhlbaum, “Beiträge zur Quellenkunde Alt-Livlands,” Verhandlungen der
gelehrten Estnischen Gesellschaft zu Dorpat 7 (1873), 64–65; Peter, Chronicon III.341(334),
p. 186. Cf. LUB 2, no. 695; LUB 6, no. 3072.
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 275

counter-attack, arriving with his army at the beginning of February 1323.

Together with the troops of Pskov they plundered Danish northern Estonia.
The Prussian chronicler of the Teutonic Order Peter of Dusburg uses the grim
language typical in such a context to describe this pagan offensive: Davyd
and the Lithuanians are supposed to have captured and killed over five thou-
sand Christians, slaughtered clerics, and desecrated churches and altars.183
Meanwhile Gediminas was fighting against the Teutonic Order in Prussia and
planned to force it to sign a peace.184 The attack on the fishermen on the Narva
River and on the territory of Gdov was apparently in response to the cam-
paign by Lithuania and Pskov in the bishopric of Dorpat. It may be the case
that soldiers from northern Estonia had also been involved, which was why
the Russians planned their retaliation in Danish territory. It is possible that
Gediminas secretly wished to use force to compel all Livonian states to agree
peace with him. During 1314–18 the Order and King Erik Menved of Denmark
had also reached an agreement;185 Danish vassals had long traditionally sup-
ported the Order.
In May 1323 Konrad Kesselhut, the vice-master of the Livonian Order,
launched a major attack on Pskov. Since his forces reached the city by ship
too, it is probable that the bishopric of Dorpat also took part. The city was
besieged for eighteen days. Novgorod and Iurii Danilovich refused Pskov’s
request for support. Prince Evstafii of Izborsk attacked the besiegers first until
finally Davyd arrived from Lithuania with his army, putting an end to the siege:
“afterwards authorized representatives were sent from the whole of Livonia
to Pskov, and a peace was agreed entirely in accordance with Pskov’s wishes”.186
The war conducted by the Order, the bishopric of Dorpat, and northern
Estonia against Pskov can only be understood in the context of relations
between Lithuania and Livonia.187 Iurii Danilovich had lost control of Pskov
and he had to do his utmost to retrieve it. Novgorod had to come to terms
with the fact that Pskov had joined an alliance with Lithuania, its constant and
dangerous opponent. Pskov and Lithuania worked closely with the city and

183  Peter, Chronicon III.343(336), p. 187; Höhlbaum, “Beiträge,” pp. 64–65; LUB 2, no. 695;
LUB 6, no. 3072.
184  Rowell, Lithuania, pp. 209–10.
185  Schirren, Verzeichniss, p. 2; p. 134, no. 201; DD 2/7, nos. 161–62; 2/8, nos. 72–73.
186  P L 1, pp. 15–16; PL 2, pp. 23, 89–90; Hermanni Chronicon, p. 60. Cf. SL1, pp. 397–98; Die
Chroniken der niedersächsischen Städte. Lübeck, vol. 1, ed. Karl Koppmann (Leipzig, 1884)
(Die Chroniken der deutschen Städte vom 14. bis ins 16. Jahrhundert 19), p. 445, para. 526.
187  See Stephen C. Rowell, “Swords for Sale? Aspects of Gediminas’ Diplomacy (1323–1341),”
Lituanistica 2 (30), 1997, p. 13; Rowell, Lithuania, p. 238.
276 chapter 6

archbishopric of Riga; the Order with northern Estonia and Novgorod. There
are several indications that such coalitions did indeed exist at the time.
For example, there is an extant letter from the council of Riga to Gediminas
from November 1322. The grand duke is requested not to agree a peace treaty
with the Teutonic Order on his own, but—as was the custom—to act so that
the cathedral chapter and the city of Riga would also be parties. The council
asks the Lithuanians to protect the city against the Order in the war should the
need arise. At the end of the letter the council reveals that the city was aware
of Davyd’s accession to power in Pskov. Since the council knew that Davyd and
Gediminas were intimate associates, it asks Gediminas to intercede with Davyd
on behalf of the residents of Riga, who often travelled through Pskov territory.188
The peace between Pskov and Livonia formed only part of the peace treaty
concluded between Gediminas and Livonia on 2 October 1323. Gediminas also
acted here “in the name of Pskov and all our Russian subjects”.189 The Order’s
opposition to peace with Gediminas accordingly extended to peace with
Pskov as well. This opposition found expression in a treaty of alliance agreed
shortly after the peace of Wilno between the Order, the vassals of northern
Estonia, and Novgorod, sealed on 23 December 1323.190 Livonia was repre-
sented by some commanders from the Order and Danish vassals, Novgorod
by Archbishop Davyd, the posadnik and the tysiatskii. The parties to the treaty
promised to help one another against the Lithuanians and “all their friends
and helpers”. Relations between Novgorod and Prince Iurii Danilovich must
have been strained because in the treaty the cooperation was also provided
for in the event that the Novgarden koningh should act with the Lithuanian
duke against Novgorod.191 The parties promised to fight together against the

188  R LU, no. 53: “Ceterum percepimus, quod dominus Dawid sit rex plescowie. Cum igitur vos
et ipse estis amici speciales, quare scinceritatem vestram petimus studiose, vt taliter ordi-
nare dignemini vestra gracia mediante, quod ipse sit amicus nostre ciuitatis et promotor
nostrorum conciuium, qui per terram suam multociens proficiscuntur, quod intendi-
mus deseruire”; Hermann Hildebrand, “Verbesserungen zu K. E. Napiersky’s Russisch-
Livländischen Urkunden,” Mitt. Riga 12 (1880), 262, no. 53; LUB 6, no. 3068. See Rowell,
Lithuania, p. 195.
189  L UB 2, no. 693–94; RLU, no. 58; Hildebrand, “Verbesserungen,” p. 262, no. 58; AV, nos. 168–
69; PUB 2, no. 418.
190  L UB 2, no. 644; GVNP, no. 37: “des lesten vridaghes vor des heylighen kerstes daghe”; On
the date, see AR 1, no. 20; NA, no. 11; cf. Rowell, Lithuania, p. 215.
191  This is taken as an error in the publication of the Novgorod documents (GVNP, no. 66);
the commentator believes it ought to say “the prince of Pskov”. However, bearing in mind
the often strained relations between Novgorod and its princes, “the prince of Novgorod” is
Livonia and Rus ’ , 1260–1330 277

Lithuanians, not to agree a peace separately with Lithuania, and to resolve dis-
putes peacefully:192

But if it is the case that the Pskovians do not wish to break away from
Lithuania, then we [the Teutonic Order and Livonia] must help the
Novgorodians, fighting with them against the Pskovians, and they with
us, until they become the subordinates of the Novgorodians.

Thanks to this treaty the Order also had the opportunity of acting against the
city and archbishop of Riga, who undoubtedly belong to the “friends and help-
ers” of the Lithuanians. In 1324 the council of Riga defended its relations with
Lithuania before the council of Lübeck. One of the charges levelled by the
Rigans against the Teutonic Order was the following: in the winter the Order
concluded the peace with the Novgorod Russians on condition that all citizens
of Riga in Novgorod would lose their property and their lives; this condition
was not implemented despite pressure from the Order due to the intervention
of the Hanseatic merchants.193
The treaty agreed in 1323 between the Order and Novgorod was a continu-
ation of the previous political rapprochement between them. In his reply to
the accusations levelled against the Teutonic Order, its procurator expressed
the view in 1312 that “the prince of Novgorod and his subjects sunt amici
christianorum”.194 In September 1323 the Danish captain in Reval, Jens Kande
(d. 1326), and the local vassals granted a privilege to the merchants who visited
Novgorod intended to ensure them the escort over land and water “as long as
the people of Novgorod will favour the Christian folk”.195
Novgorod and Lithuania were constantly at war from 1323 to 1326. During
this period Grand Prince Dmitrii Mikhailovich killed his rival Iurii Danilovich
while they were at the Horde and was in turn killed for this crime. Just as pro-
vided for in the 1323 treaty agreed with the Order, apart from the Lithuanian
representatives,196 the “Germans”, most likely representatives of the Teutonic

not inconceivable at all. The prince is not mentioned in the sequence of Novgorod rulers
given in the treaty; Pskov is discussed after in the treaty text.
192  Cf. DD 2/5, no. 298; AR 1, no. 1; LUB 2, no. 608.
193  L UB 6, no. 3072; RLU, no. 62, Hildebrand, “Verbesserungen,” pp. 262–63, no. 62.
194  Zeugenverhör, p. 206 supplement IX, para. 296.
195  D D 2/9, no. 65; LUB 2, no. 692: “quamdiu ipsi ciues Nogardienses amici christianitatis
fuerint et fautores”. See also DD 2/9, no. 94; LUB 1, no. 594.
196  The brother of Gediminas, Prince Voin of Polotsk; Prince Vasilii of Minsk; Prince Fedor
Sviatoslavich.
278 chapter 6

Order from Livonia, were also present when peace was concluded between
Novgorod and Lithuania. This treaty represented a significant success for
Lithuania in its border disputes with Novgorod.197 This phase of the conflict
between the city of Riga and the Teutonic Order under discussion here did
not come to an end until the third decade of the 14th century. In the sum-
mer of 1328 the citizens of Riga attacked Dünamünde and burned down the
fenced wooden settlement (Hakelwerk) in front of the castle. After the city
had renewed its alliance with Grand Duke Gediminas, the Order seized some
castles in the territory of the archbishopric of Riga. The Lithuanian army laid
waste to the Order’s territory at Karkus, Helmet, Tarwast, and near Paistel. In
March 1330 the city of Riga was finally forced to surrender to the Order after a
siege lasting half a year and recognize its authority.198
The grand dukes of Lithuania were dominant not only in Polotsk but
now also in Pskov, which led to an alliance between the Teutonic Order and
Novgorod. The alliances and political interest groups clearly did not form based
on religious criteria. The eastern shores of the Baltic Sea formed a united politi-
cal arena in which crusade was one element among many and was as such
mainly targeted against Lithuania. Wars against Rus’ became just a derivative
of the Teutonic-Lithuanian wars.

197  N L1, pp. 98, 341; Klug, “Fürstentum Tver’,” pp. 103, 117; Rowell, Lithuania, p. 239; Ianin,
Новгород и Литва, pp. 55–58.
198  L UB 2, nos. 739–42, 744, 749. See Bunge, Stadt Riga, pp. 41–45; Benninghoven, “Zur
Technik,” pp. 644–46; Rowell, Lithuania, pp. 242–43. Cf. Höhlbaum, “Beiträge,” pp. 66–67:
in 1330 Curonia was devasted “by the army of the Lithuanians and the Russians”.
 chapter 7

Russian Principalities in the Eastern European

Sources, 1250–1350

7.1 The Papacy, the Mongols, and Rus’

From the mid-13th century onwards a large part of Rus’ was under Mongol con-
trol. This brought an added dimension to relations between Rus’ and its west-
ern neighbours, which needs to be explored in greater depth. The campaigns
for plunder in Rus’, and from there on to Poland and Hungary, led by Batu Khan
in 1240–41 are mentioned in many contemporary Western European sources.
Princes Daniil of Volhynia and Mikhail of Chernigov fled to Hungary in the
face of the Mongol advance. Only the fact that Batu’s army unexpectedly
turned back at the beginning of 12421 saved even larger areas from being dev-
astated. Western sources often mention that Russian territories were among
those that lay within the Mongol path of destruction.2 Although the events
mainly affected the southern regions, the impact on Rus’ was certainly known
in Livonia, becoming another factor to be taken into account. As far as the ter-
ritories of Pskov, Novgorod, Polotsk, and Smolensk are concerned, however, the
incursions had no more than indirect consequences. Novgorod and Smolensk
were later encumbered with the duty to pay the Mongol tribute—as a result
of the policy of the Russian princes—while neither Pskov nor Polotsk were
directly affected by the tax collection.
The danger from the Mongols was also felt in the Catholic world, primarily in
Poland and Hungary.3 In the second half of the 13th century a significant aspect
of papal policy was the crusade against the Mongols, but the popes’ repeated
calls to crusade ultimately found little support. There is no evidence that there
was even an awareness of these calls in Livonia and Prussia in any case. During
the vacancy at the Holy See that lasted from the death of Pope Gregory IX in
1241 until 1243, the preaching of the crusade against the ‘Tatars’ lost its inten-
sity. This was followed by the dispute over supremacy between the pope and

1  See Kosztolnyik, Hungary, pp. 133–83.

2  
For example, the north German Annales Stadenses auctore Alberto, ed Johannes M.
Lappenberg, in MGH SS, vol. 16 (Hanover, 1859), p. 367.
3  Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the West, 1221–1410 (Harlow, 2005), pp. 87–112.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004284753_009

280 chapter 7

Emperor Frederick II, which overshadowed everything else.4 Meanwhile the

Mongol raids continued in Catholic Europe. The Mongol governor Quremsa
took retaliation on Galicia and Volhynia during 1254–55; the emirs Burundai
and Noghai laid waste to Poland in either 1258–59 or 1259–60. The Mongol
military campaigns also extended as far as Lithuania. Against the background
of these attacks the papacy ordered the preaching of the crusade against
the Mongols on repeated occasions throughout the period from 1250 to 1280.5
The Teutonic Order in Prussia, which was to take part in the planned crusades,
also played a key role in these endeavours.6
Since during this period the Mongol invasions also included the participa-
tion of their Russian subordinates, among whom were the rulers of Galicia
and Volhynia, it became possible from the second half of the 13th century to
regard Rus’, like the Mongols, as an enemy of Latin Christendom. The crusades
themselves were proclaimed not only against the ‘Tatars’ but also the Russians.
The most urgent of these calls occurred around 1260, when one of the strate-
gies adopted by King Ottokar II of Bohemia (d. 1278) to enhance his power
and prestige was to assume leadership of the crusade. He had already gone on
crusade to Prussia in the winter of 1254–55. Ottokar’s enmity with the king of
Hungary, who was allied with Galicia, intensified the language he used against
Rus’ and the schismatics. In 1260 when Ottokar fought against Hungary he
went to war, in his own words, against the Hungarian kings Béla and Stephan
(d. 1272), the Russian king Daniil and his sons, “and the other Russians and
Tatars who did come to the aid of him”, as well as against princes Bolesław the
Chaste of Krakow (d. 1279), Leszek the Black of Łęczyca (d. 1288), “and against
a countless crowd of inhuman people, against the Cumans, Hungarians, and
all kinds of Slavs, Szeklers, as well as the Vlachs, Muslims, Ismaelites, and the
schismatics, namely the Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, and the heretical Bosnians”.7
For the Teutonic Order, King Ottokar was thus simultaneously a source of aid
in the war against the pagans and a rival in the conquest of lands and the
recruitment of crusaders. Hence, the Order secured privileges from the curia

4  Peter Jackson, “The Crusade Against the Mongols (1241),” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 42
(1991), 1–18; Mikołaj Gładysz, The Forgotten Crusaders. Poland and the Crusader Movement
in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Leiden-Boston, 2012) (The Northern World 56),
pp. 257–69, 302–03.
5  Altaner, Dominikanermissionen, p. 118; Paulus, Geschichte, p. 27; Purcell, Papal Crusading
Policy, pp. 88–92; Kotliar, “Галицко-Волынская летопись,” p. 138.
6  Jürgen Sarnowsky, “The Teutonic Order Confronts Mongols and Turks,” in The Military
Orders. Fighting for the Faith and Caring for the Sick, ed. Malcolm Barber (Aldershot, 1994),
pp. 256–57. Cf. Forstreuter, “Zur Geschichte”.
7  H RM 2, p. 348, no. 5.
Neighbouring Russian Principalities 281

guaranteeing that the competing campaigns of the crusading preachers would

not harm its interests.8 In 1260 the Teutonic Order obtained a confirmation
from Pope Alexander IV that all estates in Rus’ either donated to the Order or
captured from the ‘Tatars’ would remain in its possession. The pope added:

We nevertheless wish that any prelates or clergy of the dioceses and the
other churches of the aforementioned Rus’ who shamefully do not fear to
follow the schismatic Greeks and to serve their rite, shall retain their spir-
itual power in full should they precisely return to the unity of the faith
and under the obedience of the Holy Roman Church.9

The crusade against the Mongols and their Russian helpers was constantly in
the air at the end of the 1250s and beginning of the 1260s,10 but never actually
materialized. The Franciscan William of Rubruck, who had visited the court
of the Great Khan in 1254, nonetheless believed that as soon as the pope pro-
claimed a crusade against the Mongols, they would flee back to their deserts
full of fear.11
The Polish princes were also involved in the struggle to subjugate Lithuania
and Sudovia. This was linked to the desire of the bishop of Lebus to obtain
confirmation of his jurisdiction over all Latins in Rus’, despite the fact that he
could not visit this part of his diocese “because the land was far away and its
ruler disloyal”.12 The attitude to Rus’ and its schismatic confession depended
to a large extent on whether the ruler in question adopted a hostile approach
to Russian rulers or had alliances with them. A further aspect related to the
rapid expansion of the area under Lithuanian control, as a result of which
some Russians became subjects of the pagan Lithuanian dukes and partici-
pants in their military campaigns. The Polish, Bohemian, and Hungarian rulers
increasingly began to appeal to foreign institutions in their conflicts with one
another by drawing attention to their role as defenders of Christendom against
the pagan Mongols and Lithuanians. In the second half of the 13th c­ entury Rus’

8  L UB 1, nos. 310, 328; PUB 1/2, nos. 61, 98–99. See also Rhode, Ostgrenze, pp. 151–53; Patze,
“Frieden,” pp. 87–88; Maier, Preaching, pp. 87–93; Selart, “Die Bettelmönche,” pp. 492–94.
9  P UB 1/2, no. 89; cf. nos. 88, 98–99, 110–13; LUB 1, no. 345; cf. nos. 346, 355–57; LUR,
nos. 930–33, 944–47.
10  P UB 1/2, nos. 7, 21, 23, 38, 59, 61, 82, 109, 115, 131, 134; LUB 1, nos. 311, 359–60; LUR, nos. 841,
879, 954; ST, no. 112. Cf. Bullarium Poloniae, nos. 640, 657, 666, 757, 992, 1070. See also BGP,
pp. 181–82, no. 20.
11  Itinerarium Willelmi XIII.2, p. 195: “Si enim Tartari audirent quod magnus sacerdos, hoc est
Papa, faceret cucesignari contra eos, omnes fugerent ad solitudines suas.”
12  DPR, no. 33; Vetera monumenta Poloniae, no. 144.
282 chapter 7

too became an established element in this enemy topos. The theme was par-
ticularly elaborated upon by the circle of King Ottokar II, although this did not
prevent that king from forming political alliances with the Russians when it
suited him.13 Rus’ was transformed through its relationship with the Mongols
from a Christian people and fellow sufferers into a dangerous enemy.14 The
schismatics were identified by contemporaries and successive generations
mainly with the pagans,15 an association that could be cited as a valid argu-
ment in the pursuit of various claims.16 In 1253 Béla IV defended before the
pope his daughter’s marriage to Lev Danilovich and to Rostislav Mikhailovich,
the ban of Mačva from the Chernigov dynasty, on the grounds that he received
news of the Mongols from them and his other friends in the east. The same
letter also deals with the danger posed to Christians by the Mongols and
the tax collectors dependent on them and justifies the collaboration with the
schismatics and the pagans in terms of their defence.17 The idea thus began to
take root that Poland, because of the continual threat from the Mongols, was
located on the edge of the Christian world—as guardian of Christendom—
an idea also reflected in the Polish self-perception. Mongol supremacy over
Rus’ meant that the latter became increasingly associated with this image of
the enemy.18 Polish petitioners in particular frequently made recourse to their
endangered position in their supplications to the papacy.19 In 1264 Urban IV
wrote to King Ottokar:

13  Floria, У истоков, pp. 189–94.

14  Schirren, Verzeichniss, p. 131, no. 117; PUB 1/2, nos. 5, 38; Annales capituli Posnaniensis, ed.
Max Perlbach, in MGH SS, vol. 29 (Hanover, 1892), p. 460: “pro peccatis christianorum
intraverunt Tartari cum Pruthenis, Ruthenis, Comanis et aliis gentibus”. Since the Mongol
invasion, Rus’ was mentioned in Western European sources almost exclusively in that
context.
15  For example, in the 15th century. See Ioannis Długossi annales, vol. 4, pp. 124–26 (1259),
pp. 135–36 (1262), pp. 145–46 (1265), pp. 149–56 (1266). Cf. Annales capituli, p. 462; Vetera
monumenta Poloniae, no. 112.
16  Andrzej Feliks Grabski, Polska w opiniach obcych X–XIII w. (Warsaw, 1964), pp. 281–327.
17  Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam sacram illustrantia, no. 440; cf. no. 485. See
Nora Berend, “Hungary, ‘the Gate of Christendom’,” in Medieval Frontiers: Concepts and
Practices, ed. David Abulafia and Nora Berend (Aldershot, 2002), pp. 195–215.
18  For example, 1252: Kodeks dyplomatyczny katedry Krakowskiej Ś. Wacława, vol. 1, ed.
Franciszek Piekosiński (Krakow, 1874) (Monumenta medii aevi historica res gestas
Poloniae illustrantia 1; Wydawnictwa komisyi historycznej akademii umiejętności w
Krakowie 4), no. 33.
19  Rhode, Ostgrenze, pp. 133–34, 149–54; Grabski, Polska, pp. 274–78; Bârlea, Konzile, p. 66.
Neighbouring Russian Principalities 283

We have learned that the schismatic Russians and Lithuanians and other
inhabitants of these lands who do not worship God, but rather blas-
pheme His name, together with their allies, the Tatars, to whom they are
bound in a criminal alliance, often attack Poland without meeting any
resistance.

At the same time the pope confirmed to the king the right to keep possession of
the occupied lands in Rus’ and Lithuania and those converted to the true faith,
provided that they were not already in the possession of the Teutonic Order or
other Catholics.20 At the beginning of the 1270s, before the Second Council of
Lyon, Bruno of Schauenburg (d. 1281), the bishop of Olomouc, wrote to Pope
Gregory X about eastern Europe and his concerns, explaining the unworthi-
ness of the neighbours of King Ottokar II: the king of Hungary was allied with
the pagan Cumans, even the queen herself was of Cuman descent, and he had
promised his two daughters to the schismatic Russians: “the Russians are schis-
matics and extremely subservient slaves of the Tatars”.21 In 1267 Ottokar had
intended to establish in Olomouc the see of an archbishopric for Lithuania
and the adjoining Russian territory, and during 1267–68 he went on crusade
to Prussia.22 The pope confirmed in 1286 the powers of the cardinal-legate
John Boccamazza (d. 1309) “in Germany, Bohemia, the kingdoms of Denmark
and Sweden, as well as in Moravia, Brandenburg, Poland, Pomerania, Prussia,
Kashubia and Livonia, and in the Russian principality”.23 This area coincides
with that covered by Albert Suerbeer’s legation, but there are no reports to
indicate that Cardinal John had any connection with Rus’.
Catholic Europe’s visions were not just limited to crusades against the
Mongols. Ideas abounded about the Mongols’ Christianity or the possibility of
sending missions to them. This would have given Christendom a mighty ally in
the fight against the Muslims. From the 12th century onwards the legend cir-
culated of a powerful Christian ruler located deep in Asia, called Prester John
or King David. When reports of the creation of the Mongol empire reached

20  P UB 1/2, no. 222; HRM 2, pp. 350–51, no. 6; Vetera monumenta Poloniae, no. 149. See also
PUB 1/2, no. 944.
21  Analecten zur Geschichte Deutschlands und Italiens, ed. Constantin Höfler (Abhandlungen
der historischen Classe der königlich bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, vol. 4,
Abtheilung 3, 1846, Teil B), pp. 21–22; PUB 1/2, no. 315. Vetera monumenta historica
Hungariam sacram illustrantia, no. 535. King Stephan V of Hungary (1270–72) married a
Cuman princess.
22  Jaroslav Goll, “König Ottokars von Böhmen zweiter Kreuzzug,” in Mittheilungen des
Instituts für oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung 23 (1902), 231–37.
23  For example, DD 2/3, no. 235.
284 chapter 7

the West, they were immediately merged with these legends.24 Although
Batu’s offensive undoubtedly created a negative idea of the Mongols,25 the
dreams of missionizing and of political alliances against the Muslims were not
relinquished. The Mongols, moreover, did go to war against the Arabs, while
the Nestorians and other Christians in their territory exercised considerable
influence.26 There appeared to be great prospects for the missionary activ-
ity of the Dominicans and Franciscans in Asia. It is only with the benefit of
hindsight, knowing that such endeavours failed, that they can be regarded as
fantastical. The hope resurfaced in the 1250s, when people in Europe became
convinced that Sartaq (1256–57), the son of Batu who governed on the Volga,
had allegedly converted to Christianity. When Sartaq died, however, he was
succeeded by the Muslim Berke.
Motivated by these missionary hopes and to establish diplomatic relations,
as well as to find out their intentions, Innocent IV sent various embassies
to the Mongols. Four embassies were sent to Asia in 1245. One of these, that of
the Franciscan John of Plano Carpini, returned in 1247 with the news that the
Mongols were planning a major new invasion.27 Mongol envoys returned
the visit to Europe in 1248. The next year King Louis IX of France, who was
then in Cyprus on crusade, sent an embassy to the great khan. But hopes of
a joint venture against the Caliphate of Baghdad ended in disappointment.28
The Franciscan William of Rubruck, the author of another travel account,
embarked on his journey slightly later. He left Palestine in 1253, precisely with

24  Ulrich Knefelkamp, “Der Priesterkönig Johannes und sein Reich—Legende oder Realität?”
Journal of Medieval History 14 (1988), 349; Axel Klopprogge, Ursprung und Ausprägung des
abendländischen Mongolenbildes im 13. Jahrhundert. Ein Versuch zur Ideengeschichte des
Mittelalters (Wiesbaden, 1993) (Asiatische For­schungen 122); Bezzola, Mongolen; Fried,
“Auf der Suche”; Giessauf, Mongolenge­schichte; Brincken, Nationes, pp. 382–419. See also
Христианский мир, pp. 214–21.
25  Both in Rus’ and Latin Europe the Mongols were viewed within an apocalyptic frame-
work. On the possible interplay between the two, see Jackson, “Medieval Christendom’s
Encounter with the Alien,” pp. 357–68.
26  According to John of Plano Carpini, Russians and Hungarians lived among the Mongols,
including clerici ruteni, who were extremely helpful with linguistic and other knowledge.
See Pian di Carpine, Storia dei mongoli IX.39, p. 324.
27  “Sciendum quod imperator proprio ore dixit quod vellet mittere exercitum in Livoniam
et Prusciam”. The great khan supposedly also spoke of a planned attack on Poland and
Hungary. See Pian di Carpine, Storia dei mongoli VIII.5, p. 295. Cf. Христианский мир,
pp. 305–06, 315–17.
28  Altaner, Dominikanermissionen, pp. 128–36; Patze, “Frieden,” pp. 78–80; Giessauf, Mongo­
lengeschichte, pp. 35–43.
Neighbouring Russian Principalities 285

the intention of doing missionary work, only to return disappointed in 1255,

having discovered that Sartaq was not Christian after all, that the Christianity
of the Nestorians did not meet his standards, and that the prospects for any
missionizing whatsoever were extremely limited.29
This apparent duplicity on the part of the papacy—the calls to crusade on
the one hand and the sending of mendicant embassies to the Mongol rulers
on the other—has led to accusations of hypocrisy, above all in Russian histori-
ography. It is claimed that the papacy’s objective had been to exploit the situ-
ation created by the Mongols to seize power in eastern Europe, namely in Rus’.
The hidden aim of the delegations had been neither the Christian missions
nor joining forces with the Mongols against the Muslims in the Near East, but
the conquest and conversion to Catholicism of Rus’ working in liaison with the
Mongols.30 Only John of Plano Carpini’s negotiations in Volhynia could possi-
bly be cited as evidence in support of this view, even though their real subject
was the shared interest in mounting a defence against any raids. For example,
William of Rubruck wrote that north of Rus’ was Prussia, which had just been
conquered by the brothers of the Teutonic Order, who would in turn easily be
able to subjugate Rus’ too if they decided to.31 However, it would seem that

29  Giessauf, Mongolengeschichte, pp. 56–61. For a bibiography of the embassies, see Fried,
“Auf der Suche,” p. 303. On the role of the Mongols in European missionary plans, diplo-
macy, and political propaganda in the 13th century, see Felicitas Schmieder, Europa und
die Fremden. Die Mongolen im Urteil des Abendlandes vom 13. bis in das 15. Jahrhundert
(Sigmaringen, 1994) (Beiträge zur Geschichte und Quellen­kunde des Mittelalters 16),
pp. 73–128; Bernard Hamilton, “The Latin Empire and Western Contacts with Asia,” in
Contact and Conflict in Frankish Greece and the Aegean, 1204–1453. Crusade, Religion and
Trade between Latins, Greeks and Turks, ed. Nicolaos G. Chrissis and Mike Carr (Farnham,
2014) (Crusades—Subsidia 5), pp. 43–62, here 46–53. Europe’s hopes for an alliance with
the Mongols against the Muslims had become stronger since the 1260s: Jackson, “The
Crusade Against the Mongols,” p. 2.
30  Ramm, Папство, pp. 146, 151; Emma Lederer, “Венгерско-русские отношения и татаро-
монгольское нашествие,” in Международные связи России до ХVII в., ed. Aleksandr A.
Zimin et al. (Moscow, 1961), pp. 181–202; Matuzova and Pashuto, “Послание,” pp. 133–34;
Staviskii, “К анализу,” pp. 198–99. Cf. Pashuto, Очерки, p. 277; Donald Ostrowski,
“Second-Redaction Additions in Carpini’s Ystoria Mongalorum,” Harvard Ukrainian
Studies 14 (1990), 522–50; Pian di Carpine, Storia dei mongoli, pp. 100–216; Giessauf,
Mongolengeschichte, p. 81.
31  Itinerarium Willelmi XIII.2, p. 195: “Ultra Rusciam ad acquilonem est Pruscia, quam nuper
subiugaverunt totam fratres Teutonici, et certe de facili aquirerent Rusciam si appon-
erent manum”. Rubruck’s knowledge of Prussia might have dervied from contact with the
Teutonic Knights in Palestine.
286 chapter 7

what was meant by this was the possible expulsion of the Mongols from Rus’,
not the conquest of Rus’ with the help of the Mongols.
Around the middle of the 13th century the submission of the church of Rus’
to the obedience of the church of Rome appeared to be becoming a reality.
But relations with Rus’ on the ground, including how they are reflected in
the papal letters, were in fact determined in the frontier lands, not in Lyon or
Rome. The contradiction between the calls to crusade and the Mongol embas-
sies is therefore only a superficial one: the missions, the dreams of conversion
to Christianity, and of the submission of the Eastern Christians to the Catholic
church, not to mention any joint undertakings in the Near East, all served
the same aim of self-defence, which in the language of the 13th century also
signified the recognition of the supremacy of the church of Rome.32 To inter-
pret events as though they were aimed against Rus’ would be to place far too
much weight on this aspect of European affairs of state. Much more press-
ing affairs took precedence, namely concerns about defence of the Holy Land,
the conflict with Frederick II and, after his death, between the pretenders
to the German crown, not to mention the problems of rule in Italy and rela-
tions with the Greek schismatics.

7.2 The Role of Rus’ in the Disputes between the Teutonic Order,
the Archbishop of Riga, and the City of Riga

The conflict between the city of Riga and the Teutonic Order was in truth a
struggle over the Order’s supremacy in Livonia, with the archbishop of Riga
as the principal opponent of the knightly corporation. The Order’s opponents
had brought a formal accusation against it before the pope by 1298 at the latest,
the first in a succession of legal actions which lasted several decades and lead-
ing to various outcomes. Following a vacancy of some length, the Franciscan
Frederick Pernstein33 was appointed archbishop of Riga in 1304. Frederick
arrived in Livonia in 1305, but was unable to gain control of Riga and left the
country again in 1307 for Avignon, where he continued his campaign against
the Teutonic Order. In 1310 the pope ordered the canon of Ravenna, Albertus de
Mediolano, and the archbishop of Bremen, Jens Grand, to investigate the accu-
sations against the Order. The investigation was carried out by the papal chap-
lain Francis of Moliano (see p. 237), who, along with Archbishop Frederick,

32  Cf. Ammann, “Gedanken,” pp. 114–19.

33  On this figure, see Kurt Forstreuter, “Erzbischof Friedrich von Riga (1304–1341),” ZfO 19
(1970), 652–65; Mažeika and Rowell, “Zelatores,” pp. 46–49.
Neighbouring Russian Principalities 287

was actually in Livonia during 1311–12. Under his supervision a succession of

Livonian clergy were questioned about the accusations against the Teutonic
Order. At least twenty-four witnesses were interviewed. The transcripts of
these interviews as well as other written complaints, responses, and prosecu-
tion records are bound to be polemical by their very nature. Their purpose was
to justify one side and accuse the other. Both parties used arguments aimed
at harming their opponents and having the strongest possible impact on the
curia and ‘public opinion’ throughout Europe.
In 1313 the Order was able to impose a peace treaty on its opponents; in
1316 it formed an alliance against the archbishop with some of his vassals and
some of the cathedral canons. This resulted in the archbishop being driven
from his possessions, which the Order proceeded to occupy, allowing it to seize
overall control throughout Livonia. Pope John XXII declared this ‘conspiracy
of Segewold’, so called because it was agreed at the Order’s castle there, invalid
in 1317, and summoned the parties to appear before him the following year to
hold them to account. However, the Order was able to turn the course of events
in its favour due to the fact that its grand master, Karl von Trier, was staying in
Avignon at the time.34
It is crucial to examine closely the arguments used by the parties if we are
to understand the issues that lay at the heart of the conflict. This was in fact
a difficult and precarious period for the Order. The last towns held by the
Latins in the Holy Land had recently been lost, which had provoked criticism
of the military orders in general at the beginning of the 14th century.35 They
themselves were accused of causing the defeat: the Holy Land had fallen not
because of the superior force of the Muslims, but the weakness of the faith and
the sins of the Christians. The same explanatory formula was transposed to
the borders of Livonia whenever it was necessary to explain the success of the
pagans. The king of France, Philip IV the Fair (1285–1314), took reprisals against
the Knights Templar in 1307, some of its members were killed, and the Order
was finally dissolved at the ecumenical Council of Vienne in 1312. The accu-
sations against the Templars were manifold, covering heresy, profanity, and
idolatry. The inquisition conducted by Francis of Moliano could have entailed

34  On the trial, see Haller, “Verschwörung”; Zeugenverhör, pp. VIII–XIV; Walter Fried­rich,
“Der Deutsche Ritterorden und die Kurie in den Jahren 1300–1330,” Phil. Diss., (Königsberg,
1915); Wolfgang Schmidt, “Die Zisterzienser im Baltikum und in Finn­land,” Suomen
Kirkkohistoriallisen Seuran Vuosikirja 29–30/1939–1940 (1941), 54–65; BGP, pp. 76–94;
Kostrzak, “Frühe Formen,” p. 181; Niess, Hochmeister, pp. 73–86, 128–34.
35  Alan J. Forey, “The Military Orders in the Crusading Proposals of the Late-Thirteenth and
Early-Fourteenth Centuries,” Traditio 36 (1980), 317–45.
288 chapter 7

similarly severe consequences for the Teutonic Order; the precedent had been
set and the conditions were ripe.36 The charge of profanity was also levelled
against the Order in Livonia.37 The allegation that the Order had prevented
the building of churches and chapels for neophytes was one of the ques-
tions included in the interrogation protocol drawn up by Moliano,38 which
means that the archbishop had already brought the charge against the Order.
Thus the Order’s crimes, the fate of Livonia, and the omens supplied by the
fall of Acre and Tripoli were merged into a single context by Archbishop
Frederick.39 The Livonian Teutonic Order or its knights were excommunicated
on repeated occasions (1312, 1317, 1325). They also faced the case brought by
Władysław the Elbow-High (king of Poland, 1320–33) relating to the Order’s
capture of Pomerelia in 1308/09. A judgement in Poland’s favour was issued in
1320–21, but the Order failed to implement it and the trial lingered on.40
In this juridical and propaganda battle the other side’s links to the heretical
Russians could always be cited as a valid argument. According to the accu-
sations levelled against the Teutonic Order, it had called the pagans into the
country against the Christians.41 It was the Order’s fault that King Mindaugas
had apostatized from Christianity.42 The Order made no effort to spread the
Christian faith throughout its territory.43 This very same charge had actually
been levelled by Henry of Livonia against Rus’ about a century before. The
Order was to blame for the fact that the Semgallians, who had already been
baptized on one occasion, apostatized yet again and could no longer return to

36  Zeugenverhör, p. XII; Busch, Nachgelassene Schriften, pp. 64–65; Niess, Hochmeister,
pp. 76, 78, 85–86.
37  L UB 6, no. 3065. See also Zeugenverhör, p. 17 witness VI, para. 145; pp. 175–78 Beil. VII–VIII;
pp. 184, 205 Beil. IX, paras. 32, 284–87.
38  Zeugenverhör, p. xx.
39  Zeugenverhör, p. 166 supplement IV, para. 26; LUB 2, no. 616.
40  Niess, Hochmeister, pp. 157–62, 185–86; Rowell, Lithuania, pp. 189–94; Rowell, “Swords,”
pp. 5–7; Nikžentaitis, “Wirtschaftliche und politische Motive,” pp. 127–28.
41  Zeugenverhör, p. 147 supplement I, para. 3; LUB 1, no. 584 (1300).
42  Zeugenverhör, p. 147 supplement I, para. 6; LUB 1, no. 584 (1300); Zeugenverhör, p. 169
supplement V, para. 16; LUB 2, no. 630 (1310).
43  Zeugenverhör, p. 147 supplement I, para. 5; LUB 1, no. 584 (1300); Zeugenverhör, p. 165
supplement IV, para. 18; LUB 2, no. 616 (1305); Zeugenverhör, p. 170 supplement V,
para. 20; LUB 2, no. 630 (1310). Cf. Zeugenverhör pp. 175–78 supplements VII–VIII. On the
background context, see Alan Forey, “The Military Orders and the Conversion of Muslims
in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002), 1–22.
Neighbouring Russian Principalities 289

the faith out of fear of the Order’s violent reaction.44 The Order had acted more
cruelly than the pagans in its wars against the Christians,45 and had ceded the
Christian castles of Polotsk and Dünaburg to the pagans.46 The Teutonic Order
rejected these charges47 and used the same arguments in its counter-attack:
in truth it had been the city of Riga that had reached an agreement with the
infidel Lithuanians to the detriment of all Christians,48 just as Bishop Conrad
of Ösel and his cathedral chapter had joined in an alliance with the Rigans and
the pagans against the Teutonic Order.49
Each side also accused the other of trading with the pagans. The city of
Riga alleged that the Order had agreed peace and truces with the pagans in
the interest of trade, designating specific locations for the exchange of goods
to which Rigan merchants were not admitted.50 The archbishop accused the
Order, quod dolor est dicere pariter et audire, of having sold arms, iron, and
other items to the pagans, and agreeing treaties with them51 in violation of
papal decrees and council decisions. The Order countered that on the contrary
it had impeded the citizens of Riga from selling the forbidden military goods to
the pagans and that it had, moreover, been granted trade privileges.52 In reality
both parties probably conducted trade with Lithuania, and these accusations
simply reflect their commercial rivalry.53
Usually coming after the threat from dangerous pagan neighbours, the
numerous accusations also referred to the dangerous schismatic neighbours.
The necessity of the ‘conspiracy of Segewold’ (1316) is justified in the treaty

44  Zeugenverhör, p. 148 supplement I, para. 7, 12; LUB 1, no. 584 (1300); Zeugenverhör, p. 169
supplement V, para. 17; LUB 2, no. 630 (1310).
45  Zeugenverhör, pp. 163–64 supplement IV, para. 9; LUB 2, no. 616 (1305).
46  Zeugenverhör, p. 164 supplement IV, para. 13; LUB 2, no. 616 (1305); Zeugenverhör, p. 169
supplement V, para. 14; LUB 2, no. 630 (1310).
47  See Zeugenverhör, pp. 179–207 supplement IX.
48  Zeugenverhör, pp. 188–89, 191–92 supplement IX, paras. 83, 87–88, 106–15; DD 2/7,
nos. 39–40; LUB 2, nos. 644–45.
49  Zeugenverhör, p. 193, supplement IX, para. 128.
50  Zeugenverhör, p. 157 supplement II, para. 46; LUB 1, no. 585 (1300); LUB 2, no. 3072. Cf. LR,
lines 4586–4623.
51  Zeugenverhör, p. 164 supplement IV, para. 14; LUB 2, no. 616 (1305). See also Zeugenverhör,
pp. 168–69 supplement V, para. 11; LUB 2, no. 630 (1310); cf. Zeugenverhör pp. 175–78 sup-
plement VII–VIII.
52  Zeugenverhör pp. 204–05 supplement IX, paras. 275, 278–79; cf. paras. 277, 280. See
Mažeika, “Of Cabbages and Knights,” pp. 68–69.
53  L UB 6, no. 3059; Rowell, Lithuania, p. 77; Mažeika, “Of Cabbages and Knights,” pp. 70–71.
Cf. LUB 2, 191 no. 710.
290 chapter 7

text in language similar to that used in the treaty of Weißenstein or Dorpat of

1304, in other words Livonia’s endangered situation “surrounded by evil peo-
ples, namely by infidel Lithuanians and schismatic Russians”.54 Indeed one of
the arguments used to show Livonia’s difficult situation—as justification for
one deed or another—was its location in extremis finibus christianitatis or its
role as ultimum antemurale christianitatis, formulas which begin to circulate
by the end of the 13th century at the latest.55 The northern Estonian ”Feudal
Law of Valdemar-Erik” (set down in 1315) says that if, following the death of
the previous king, vassals have to travel to Denmark for the new investiture,
the king shall make a concession, allowing the vassals to appear before him in
three groups during the course of three years, “because the lands are danger-
ously situated near the heathens, Lithuanians, Russians, and Karelians, and are
internally unsecure due to the natives”.56
This image of the dangerous and evil schismatic Russians is repeated uni-
formly throughout the Livonian sources. But as well as unconditional condem-
nation at one extreme, there are a wide range of shades through to recognition
of the Russians as fellow Christians. The judgement depends on the values
of the author(s) of the texts and on the political context. Thus the Teutonic
Knight who wrote the older Livonian Rhymed Chronicle in the 1290s placed
great weight on military ability, even praising this virtue when exhibited by
pagans.57 Although the Russians appear in the text in a sequence with the
pagans, they are not portrayed in the same terms.58 They are valsche Christians
who can even oppose the Christian people and who, inflamed with evil, do not
contribute to the success of Christendom.59 However, they can still be on the
same side as the Christians, meaning here the Order.60 In the virtually contem-
porary Prussian chronicle of the Teutonic Order written by Peter of Dusburg,

54  A R 1, p. 758 no. 12a; LUB 2, no. 654; cf. nos. 659–60.
55  See Leonid Arbusow, “Zur Würdigung der Kultur Altlivlands im Mittelalter und 16.
Jahrhundert,” Historische Zeitschrift 151 (1935), 34.
56  Altlivlands Rechtsbücher zum Theil nach bisher unbenutzten Texten, ed. Friedrich G. von
Bunge (Leipzig, 1879), p. 56, Art. 1; cf. p. 72, Art. 3, para. 1. See also DD 2/6, nos. 303, 333; 2/8,
no. 351; LUB 2, no. 680. Cf. LUB 2, nos. 632, 634.
57  On the Russians, see for example LR, lines 7637–40. See Meyer, “Stilistische Untersuchun­
gen,” pp. 18–19; Clara Redlich, Nationale Frage und Ostkolonisation im Mittelalter (Berlin,
1934) (Rigaer volkstheoretische Abhandlungen 2), p. 74; Keller, “Perspektiven,” pp. 100–02
(with some misunderstandings); Kugler, “Über die ‘Livländische Reimchronik’,” pp. 92–95.
58  L R, lines 285–90, 503–12, 2281–86, 6457–69, 6476, 6537–38.
59  L R, lines 644, 677–79, 684–86, 1553–61, 1610–12, 2071–75, 2099–2103, 2193–97, 7576–77; cf.
lines 7674–76. See also Görlich, Zur Frage, pp. 156–57.
60  L R, lines 1889–94, 7137–47; cf. lines 6493–6503, 7746–60.
Neighbouring Russian Principalities 291

for example, the possibility that a Russian could lead a pagan Lithuanian to
God was allowed for.61 During trade negotiations between Novgorod and the
Hanseatic towns at the end of the 13th century or beginning of the 14th century
the procurator of the Teutonic Order stated openly that dictus rex (the prince
of Novgorod) et omnes Rutheni subditi regis sunt amici christianorum.62 The
Novgorodians are thus not seen as Christians in their own right, but they are at
least as friends of the Christian people. The same did not apparently hold for
Pskov. From the Livonian perspective, the periods of warfare between Livonia
and Pskov, which were connected with Prince Davyd of Grodno, had the effect
of binding Pskov even more firmly to Lithuania than before. The Order thus
began to regard the schismatic Russians of Pskov as enemies just as much as
the Lithuanian pagans. Gediminas’ policy towards Livonia and Rus’ was well
coordinated.63 For Livonia the wars with Rus’ became practically by-products
of the conflicts of the Order and its allies with Lithuania.64 The fighting in the
territory of Polotsk in the 14th century, in which the Russians are occasion-
ally mentioned as a group, was already equivalent to a Lithuanian–Livonian
war and that is exactly how it is reflected in the sources. One of Gediminas’
constant claims was to Dünaburg.65 When Archbishop Frederick excommu-
nicated the Livonian Teutonic Order in 1325, he blamed it for the fact that the
bailiff of Rositten had captured Christians recently baptized by the archbishop
and sold them as slaves to “the infidels and schismatics”.66 But simultaneously
in the accounts in the Livonian (and Prussian) sources Rus’ appears as an ally
and helper to the helpers of the pagans.67 We must therefore bear in mind
that the term “Christianity”—as it is used in these generally highly polemi-
cal sources—does not stand for either religious conviction or adherence to
a particular confession, but indicates a favourable or unfavourable political
relationship.68

61  Peter, Chronicon III.294 (287), p. 173.

62  Zeugenverhör, p. 206, supplement IX, para. 296. In 1311 some German merchants travelling
between Pskov and Novgorod were injured. See HUB 2, no. 187; LUB 6, no. 2770.
63  Rowell, “Swords,” pp. 7–8; cf. Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, p. 162.
64  William Urban, “The Correct Translation of ‘Ruce’,” Journal of Baltic Studies 13 (1982), 15.
65  R LU, nos. 69, 71; Hildebrand, “Verbesserungen,” p. 264, nos. 69, 71; LUB 6, nos. 3074–75.
66  L UB 2, no. 710.
67  See also LUB 6, no. 3081; Der Litauer von Schondoch, ed. Erich Maschke, in SRP vol. 6,
pp. 54, 56.
68  Cf. Stephen C. Rowell, “Pious Princesses or the Daughters of Belial: Pagan Lithuanian
Dynastic Diplomacy, 1279–1423,” Medieval Prosopography 15 (1994), 3–81.
292 chapter 7

7.3 Rus’ and its Western Neighbours in the First Half of

the Fourteenth Century

The presence of pagan or schismatic neighbours was also used as an argument

both in and outside Livonia in other contexts aside from the internal political
conflict. In the sources relating to Polish territory, which had a greater influence
on the image of Rus’ in central and western Europe as whole than the Livonian
sources, the treatment of the Russians as hostile schismatics and dangerous
helpers of the Mongols became even more strongly entrenched in the first half
of the 14th century. The Russians are grouped together with the pagans and the
unbelievers and are called, like the Mongols and Lithuanians, “disloyal schis-
matics” or accomplices of the “Tatars”.69 These sources were intended to jus-
tify the hostile actions of their protagonists.70 This was the period when it was
hoped, as political relations improved, that the princes of western Rus’ could
be brought under the obedience of Rome. The Russian princes were, moreover,
related by blood to the Polish rulers and in some cases dependent on them.71
This dependency and kinship resulted in the allies of Rus’ being regarded as
though they were willing to join the union of the churches.72 The bishops of
Lebus continued to claim Latin jurisdiction in Rus’.73 The Teutonic Order in
Prussia and the princes of Galicia and Volhynia concluded treaties against the
“Tatars”, but also against their Polish neighbours.74 These agreements aimed
against the “Tatars” in fact first had to justify to the Christian ‘public’ the col-
laboration against Poland, which was indeed the very same purpose served
by claiming that the Russian princes had expressed the wish to recognize the

69  Anonymi descriptio Europae orientalis “Imperium Constantinopolitanum, Albania, Serbia,

Bulgaria, Ruthenia, Ungaria, Polonia, Bohemia” anno MCCCVIII exarta, ed. Olgierd Górka
(Krakow, 1916), pp. 6, 24, 41.
70  See Acta camerae apostolicae, vol. 1, ed. Jan Ptaśnik (Krakow, 1913) (Monumenta Poloniae
Vaticana 1; Editionum Collegii historici Academiae litterarum Cracoviensis 71), no. 83
(1323), no. 214 (1343); AV, no. 121 (under 1306–08); no. 186 (1325); no. 282 (1331); LUB 2,
no. 793 (1340); Vetera monumenta Poloniae, no. 316 (1325). See also Rhode, Ostgrenze, pp.
153–154; Brincken, Nationes, p. 63; Bârlea, Konzile, pp. 66–67; Rowell, Lithuania, pp. 4–5;
Nora Berend, “Défense de la Chrétienté et naissance d’une identité Hongrie, Pologne et
péninsule Ibérique au Moyen Âge,” in Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 58 no. 5 (2003),
1009–27.
71  D D 2/7, no. 286.
72  AV, nos. 138–39; DPR, nos. 36, 40–41.
73  D PR, nos. 37–39 (1320–21, 1327).
74  P UB 2, no. 157 (1316); no. 537 (1325); no. 582 (1327); no. 826 (1334). Cf. PUB 2, no. 485.
Neighbouring Russian Principalities 293

supreme authority of the pope.75 This still did not prevent the grand mas-
ter from accusing King Władysław I of Poland of having waged war with the
Hungarians, Lithuanians, Russians, and Cumans against the Order.76 This type
of argument was not used just in Poland. In 1259 King Christopher of Denmark
and King Valdemar of Sweden obtained permission from Pope Alexander IV
for the Swedish king’s marriage to the Danish princess Sophia, despite the close
degree of kinship between them, and justified the treaty between them on the
basis that the pagans in their proximity were attacking their kingdoms and
churches.77 About 1290 Bishop Bernard of Dorpat and his cathedral chapter of
Lübeck claimed the estate of the previous bishop, using the argument that the
church of Dorpat was suffering from the raids of the pagans and the Russians.78
Novgorod’s relations with Livonia’s rulers were generally peaceful at the
beginning of the 14th century. On the other hand, Novgorod was embroiled
in a permanent conflict with Sweden over Karelia and the Neva estuary
region. In 1310 it launched a military campaign in Karelia, where it built the
castle of Korela (Kexholm). Four years later the Karelians revolted against
Novgorod supremacy and submitted to Swedish rule, although this uprising
was suppressed. Russian and Hanseatic merchants were repeatedly attacked
by the Swedes on the river Neva and Lake Ladoga. The Novgorodians went
on extended campaigns in Finnish territory in 1311 and 1318, besieging Viborg
without success in 1322, while that same year Swedish troops tried to take
Korela.79 The attempts by the Swedish kings to consolidate their position in
this region involved Sweden in a century-long conflict with Rus’ which has
left its mark on Novgorod’s entire medieval literature. The origin of the ani-
mosity with the “Germans” (немцы) testified to in the Novgorod sources actu-
ally relates to these wars with Sweden rather than Novgorod’s relations with
Livonia or the Hanseatic towns in the Baltic. Novgorod and the Hanseatic
towns tended to share the same interests, for if the Neva trade route had been
under Swedish control, this would have entailed control over the Hanseatic
merchants—undoubtedly one of the aims of Swedish policy. The fact that the
same word немцы was used to designate both the Swedish and the Livonian
ruling class laid the foundation later on for the transfer of hostility from one
group to another. In the Swedish sources from the beginning of the 14th cen-
tury the main enemy of the Swedish people, kingdom, and church is likewise

75  Forstreuter, Preußen, pp. 32–33.

76  P UB 2, no. 747.
77  S D 1, no. 463.
78  L UB 1, no. 503.
79  For a history of the events, see Shaskolskii, Борба Руси за сохранение выхода, pp. 64–141.
294 chapter 7

no longer the pagans, but the Russians. The Swedish Erikskrönikan (c. 1325)
still sees the pagans as the main enemy when Viborg was erected in 1293, but
in the succeeding episodes the Russians living nearby come increasingly to the
fore: when narrating the history of Kexholm under the year 1295 the chroni-
cler is certain that the Russians will definitely go to hell because of the suffer-
ing they have inflicted on the Christians there. While the pagans are still the
main opponents of the Christians in the description of the Swedish campaign
of 1300, the main section of the account is actually dedicated to the fighting
with the Russians, in which Russians and pagans are effectively acting together
against the Christians.80 It was the “schismatic Russians and pagans” who had
attacked the people of the kingdom of Sweden.81 In August 1323 the envoys of
Sweden and Novgorod signed a peace in Nöteborg,82 but this did not put an
end to the anti-Rus’ rhetoric nor the hostilities. The tensions remained, and
the portrayal of the opposing side as not just a political enemy but also a reli-
gious one became more deeply engrained. In contemporary sources relating
to King Magnus’ crusade to Ingria and Votia during 1347–51 the Russians were
already clearly seen as the enemies of the Catholic faith, forcing the newly
baptized pagans to renounce their faith. Since the wars with Novgorod took
place in approximately the same area as the wars with the pagans a hundred
years before, the same language and ideological arguments were also applied
to them because they actually derived from disputes caused by the same politi-
cal ambitions.83
The Treaty of Nöteborg also contains the following clause: should Novgorod
fall into dispute with “those beyond the Narva River” (занаровце; illi de
Narffua), the Swedes were not allowed to send them any aid. On the other hand,
there was no actual political conflict between Novgorod and Danish northern
Estonia around 1323. The claim that Novgorod diplomacy made it impossible
to create a common front against Rus’ by means of this clause ­cannot be taken

80  Erikskrönikan, lines 1324–85, 1458–1805. Cf. Anna Waśko, “Pagans in Erik’s Chronicle
and in the Revelations of Saint Birgitta,” in Salamon, Rome, Constantinople and Newly-
Converted Europe, vol. 1, pp. 305–10.
81  S D 3, no. 2322; REA, nos. 68, 80. Cf. ST 1, no. 523.
82  S T 1, no. 205, pp. 439–59; GVNP, no. 38; NA, no. 12. Cf. Jukka Korpela, “Finland’s Eastern
Border after the Treaty of Nöteborg: An Ecclesiastical, Political or Cultural Border?,”
Journal of Baltic Studies 33 (2002), 384–97; Carsten Pape, “Rethinking the Medieval
Russian-Norwegian Border,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas N.F. 52 (2004), 161–87.
83  F MU 1, nos. 587–90; LUB 6, nos. 2846–47; Arbusow, “Römischer Arbeitsbericht,” Latvijas
Ūniversitātes Raksti 20 (1929), 558. See Lindkvist, “Crusades,” pp. 125–26, 130; Lind,
“Consequences,” pp. 145–47; Lind, “Scandinavian Nemtsy,” pp. 485–86.
Neighbouring Russian Principalities 295

seriously.84 A war against Novgorod was undoubtedly also at odds with the
intentions of the Teutonic Order, which were focussed on Lithuania and its
allies. It can be conjectured that the ongoing claims of some northern Estonian
vassals in Votia, who had traditionally received support from Sweden, were
taken into account in this point. This provision of the peace treaty was thus
really aimed at limiting Sweden’s activities, whereas the connection with
Estonian affairs was merely indirect.85 The treaty, to which merchant repre-
sentatives were also party, enabled the reopening of the Neva trade route to
Novgorod, use of which had been impeded during the warfare.86
However, these conflicts should not be overestimated. Despite their dis-
agreements, the relations between the different sides continued to bring ben-
efits. For example, the population that originated in the lands of Rus’ played
a small role in the emergence of the towns in Livonia. Given that these towns
developed along the transit routes connecting Novgorod, Pskov and the towns
on the upper Daugava and Dniepr with the Baltic lands, as well as at their inter-
section points, it was also inevitable that inhabitants from both ends of route,
i.e. from northern Germany and Rus’, settled in these new centres, which grew
rapidly during the 13th century.87 The Rigan Schuldbuch, a ledger of lending
transactions from the period 1286–1352, contains 1397 personal names. About
one hundred of them are Russians whose places of origin were the points
of intersection along the trade route between Pskov and the Daugava: Riga,
Kokenhusen, Üxküll, Treyden, Wenden, Rositten, Dorpat, Polotsk, and Pskov.88
The Rigan Russians included merchants and craftsmen. Russians also figure
among the burghers and house owners in Riga and Dorpat.89 Rigan Russians

84  For example, Jaakkola, Kuningas Maunu, pp. 138–39; Jaakkola, Suomen varhaiskeskiaika,
p. 495; Shaskolskii, Борба Руси за сохранение выхода, p. 120.
85  In the treaty of the captain at Reval, Marquard Brede, with the council of Reval in 1332
the exemption of the citizens of Reval from the duty to supply 60 men for a military
expedition east of the Narva River is mentioned (DD 2/10, no. 366). Cf. Juhan Kreem, The
Town and its Lord. Reval and the Teutonic Order (in the Fifteenth Century) (Tallinn, 2002)
(Tallinna Linnaarhiivi Toimetised 6), p. 63.
86  L UB 3, no. 707a.
87  Norbert Angermann, “Русские и белорусские купцы в средневековой Ливонии,”
in От Древней Руси к России нового времени. Сборник статей к 70-летию Анны Л.
Хорошкевич, ed. Valentin L. Janin et al. (Moscow, 2003), pp. 264–71.
88  Benninghoven, Rigas Entstehung, pp. 32, 149–64.
89  Zeugenverhör, p. 134 witness 23, para. 116; Die Libri redituum der Stadt Riga, ed. J. G.
Leonhard Napiersky (Leipzig, 1881), p. 30, para. 66; p. 47, paras. 264–65; Das Rigische
Schuldbuch, pp. LXXVII–LXXIX; Indriķis Šterns, “Latvieši un krievi viduslaiku Rīgā,” LVIŽ,
1996, no. 2 (19), 40–50, 54; Andris Tsaune [Caune], “Русское подворье в среденевековой
296 chapter 7

are mentioned repeatedly during the course of the 14th century,90 two of their
traditional areas of employment being furriers and trade. If an indication of
origin can be assumed from a name with Russian influence, then there was
a small settlement of Russian origin in a few Livonian towns throughout the
Middle Ages.91 Russian Orthodox churches may have already been founded in
Riga, Dorpat and Reval as early as the 13th century, although these were more
along the lines of trading enclaves whose primary purpose was to serve the
needs of foreign merchants from Rus’. The Orthodox Church of St Nicholas
in Riga served the merchants of Polotsk and the bishop of Polotsk also sup-
plied its priest. The churches of St Nicholas and St George in Dorpat belonged
to Pskov and Novgorod respectively, while in Reval the Orthodox Church of
St Nicholas was also a Novgorod foundation.92 Nor can the possibility be ruled
out that similar ‘merchant churches’ were founded by Russian merchants in
Wenden and Kokenhusen during the Middle Ages.93
It is notable in the cases of Dorpat and Fellin that the first settlers of these
towns included potters who had emigrated from the Pskov Land.94 In the part
of Dorpat where the place called ‘the Russian Quarter’ was located in the late
Middle Ages archaeological excavations have revealed a level dating to around
the middle of the 13th century rich in finds with Russian influence.95 Most of

Риге,” in Великий Новгород и средневековая Русь. Сборник статей к 80-летию

академика В. Л. Янина, ed. Nikolai A. Makarov et al. (Moscow, 2009), pp. 533–45.
90  Libri redituum, p. 8, paras. 105–08, 114; p. 9, para. 126; p. 14, para. 227; p. 62, para. 408; p. 63,
para. 414; p. 76, para. 560; p. 88, para. 699; p. 91, para. 736; p. 38, para. 153.
91  Anti Selart, “Russians in Livonian Towns in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,”
in Segregation—Integration—Assimilation. Religious and Ethnic Groups in The Medieval
Towns of Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Derek Keene et al. (Farnham, 2009) (Historical
Urban Studies), pp. 33–50.
92  Kaur Alttoa, “Das Russische Ende im mittelalterlichen Dorpat (Tartu),” Steinbrücke.
Estnische Historische Zeitschrift 1 (1998), 35–38.
93  Anti Selart, “Orthodox Churches in Medieval Livonia,” in Murray, Clash of Cultures,
pp. 273–90; The theory of Ants Hein that there was also a Russian ’merchant church‘
in northern Estonia, in Maholm, in the 13th century probably goes too far and is not
based on any written source: Ants Hein, “Viru-Nigula Maarja kabelist nii- ja naapidi,”
Kunstiteaduslikke Uurimusi 22 (2013), no. 1/2, 123–54.
94  Andres Tvauri, “Pihkva pottsepad Viljandis ja Tartus 13. sajandil,” Eesti Arheoloogia Ajakiri
4 (2000), 21–30.
95  An irregular clay fragment of approximately 5x6 cm was found precisely at this location
(Tartu City Museum, no. 2032/A824) with the markings of the Cyrillic letters А (or Р)
Б В Г pressed into it. The form of the letters resembles that of contemporary birch-bark
documents unveiled in Novgorod and other Russian towns. The clay fragment was appar-
ently hardened by accidental fire and may originate from the inner clay cast of a wooden
Neighbouring Russian Principalities 297

the cheaper pottery used in the eastern part of Livonia throughout the Middle
Ages originated from north-western Rus’, as did its sellers.96 The archaeologi-
cal material in Latvian territory indicates the ongoing use of external symbols
of the Orthodox religion during the 14th and 15th centuries.97 The degree to
which confessional adherence can be determined on the basis of objects is still
doubtful. Nonetheless, we at least know that part of the populace in Latvian
territory had been baptized according to the Orthodox rite at the beginning of
the 13th century. It can be presumed that over time most Livonian Russians or
Orthodox believers integrated with the German or non-German population,
depending on their social status.98 Such integration could only have occurred
if not too much importance was placed on confessional difference.
Different estimations have been made of the economic and demographic
consequences of the wars between Livonia and Rus’ in the middle and second
half of the 13th century. The sources do provide details that indicate the num-
ber and location of these campaigns, but as to how destructive they were and
what indirect economic or social consequences they had can only be guessed
at. A majority of the campaigns affected only the immediate border region;
incursions further afield (almost in the immediate vicinity of Novgorod;
in Livonia as far as Wesenberg, Fellin, and Wenden) were less frequent than in
the first decades of the 13th century. The Dorpat-Izborsk-Pskov area probably
suffered the most from the direct intervention of enemy forces. Archaeologists
have estimated that the number of inhabitants in Votia declined at the begin-
ning of the 13th century, possibly caused by an economic crisis resulting from
failed harvests, which forced emigration to the west and south. A drastic fall
in population in this region precisely from the 1230s to the 1260s has also

building. See also Ain Mäesalu, “Archäologische Erkenntnisse zum Handel in Tartu
(Dorpat) vom 12. bis zum 17. Jahrhundert,” in Lübecker Kolloquium zur Stadtarchäologie
im Hanseraum II: Der Handel, ed. Manfred Gläser (Lübeck, 1999) (Lübecker Kolloquium
zur Stadtarchäologie im Hanseraum 2), p. 432; Tvauri, “Pihkva pottsepad,” pp. 24–26.
The Novgorod birch-bark finds range across several alphabets. See Ianin and Zalizniak,
“Берестяные грамоты,” pp. 31–32, no. 778.
96  Andres Tvauri, “Loode-Vene päritolu slaavi keraamika Eestis 11.–16. sajandil,” Eesti
Arheoloogia Ajakiri 4 (2000), 111–12.
97  See Ēvalds Mugurēvičs, “Interactions between Indigenous and Western Culture in Livonia
in the 13th to 16th Centuries,” in From the Baltic to the Black Sea. Studies in Medieval
Archaeology, ed. David Austin and Leslie Alcock (London, 1990), pp. 168–78. The treat-
ment of the written sources by Mugurēvičs is not correct here.
98  See Štern, “Latvieši,” p. 54.
298 chapter 7

been explained by these military conflicts.99 However, there are also other
explanations.
There are only a few indicators that allow us to estimate the indirect impact
of warfare on people’s prosperity and the region’s economic stability during
the 13th century. Formulas for the economic performance of Rus’ have been
developed based on the assumption that economic growth can be measured
in line with building activity.100 These reveal that the whole of Rus’ was in
the midst of an economic depression around the middle of the 13th century.
Historians have explained this situation in the overall Russian context with
reference to the Mongol conquest, but as regards Novgorod and Pskov specifi-
cally the cause has been identified in the military activity on their western
borders, i.e. ‘the German aggression’.101 Both factors were undoubtedly impor-
tant. Nor should we forget the regional differences between the various parts of
Russian territory, not to mention the high number of wars among the Russian
princes themselves. Warfare will hardly have been the only factor to influence
growth. For example, the high level of expenditure that Novgorod had to spend
on the princes and Mongol tax collectors in the 1250s and 1260s must be taken
into account. Moreover, the 13th century as a whole in Rus’ has been seen as a
period of economic transformation in terms of the ‘agrarization’ of society and
cultural change. These manifestations of crisis were not caused by the Mongol
invasion, but had already begun to appear somewhat earlier.102 Thus Novgorod
had already begun to decline economically by around 1200, even before the
beginning of outright warfare in the Baltic.103

99  Lesman, “Динамика,” pp. 55–57.

100  David B. Miller, “Monumental Building as an Indicator of Economic Trends in Northern
Rus’ in the Late Kievan and Mongol Periods, 1138–1462,” The American Historical Review
94 (1989), column 360–90; cf. Ilia V. Antipov, Древнерусская архитектура второй
половины ХIII–первой трети ХIV в. Каталог памятников (St Petersburg, 2000).
101  See for example Inga K. Labutina, “Псков в ХIII веке,” in Великий Новгород в истории
средневековой Европы. К 70-летию Валентина Л. Янина, ed. Aleksei A. Gippius et
al. (Moscow, 1999), pp. 260–63; Inga K. Labutina and Marina I. Kulakova, “Псков в ХIII
веке (археологические наблюдения по динамике расселения и сроительства),” in
Русь в ХIII веке. Древности темного времени, ed. Nikolai A. Makarov and Aleksei V.
Chernetsov (Moscow, 2003), pp. 66–82.
102  Nikolai A. Makarov, “Русь в ХIII веке: характер культурных изменений,” in Makarov
and Chernectsov, Русь в ХIII веке, pp. 5–11.
103  Jos Schaeken, “The Birchbark Documents in Time and Space—Revisited,” in Epigraphic
Literacy and Christian Identity. Modes of Written Discourse in the Newly Christian Europe, ed.
Kristel Zilmer and Judith Jesch (Turnhout, 2012) (Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 4),
pp. 222–23.
Neighbouring Russian Principalities 299

Similarly, a strict dividing line cannot be drawn between Rus’ and the
adjoining regions. Livonian trade was closely bound up with north-western
and western Rus’ to the extent that the data on economic growth worked out
by scholars for Pskov and Novgorod may also essentially be extrapolated for
the Baltic’s entire eastern zone. There is no evidence of building activity
for Novgorod for the 1250s. A series of renovations was carried in the subse-
quent decades, which in the case of the St Sophia Cathedral, for example, may
have been quite extensive. The construction of new buildings did not begin
until the 1280s and by the final years of the century Novgorod was enjoying a
comparatively buoyant period of building activity.104 In Pskov building activ-
ity reached a low point in the 1230s, to become vibrant again by the end of
the 1250s after which it experienced a certain decline before recovering par-
ticularly by the last decade of the 13th century.105 The final years of the cen-
tury were a period of economic upturn throughout the whole of Rus’, a trend
which continued at the beginning of the 14th century. The castle of Koporye
was built in the Novgorod Land in 1279–80 and 1297, and a stone fortress in
Novgorod itself in 1302. In Pskov extensive building work took place in the
Kremlin during the time of Dovmont, with the construction of a number of
churches and monasteries. Pskov was fortified in 1309 and Izborsk in 1303. All
the evidence suggests that economic growth in Livonia and in north-western
Rus’ accelerated at the end of the 13th century. This may indicate that the struc-
tural changes in the organization of trade,106 which accompanied the foun-
dation and rise of the Livonian towns and the consolidation of the different
areas of power, had reached their conclusion. The basis for stable growth was
in place. This is surely also demonstrated indirectly by the treaties between
Novgorod and the German merchants, as well as by Sweden’s steadily increas-
ing interest in the Neva estuary region. It is evident that not all castles in Rus’
were built for defence against Livonian armies and not all castles in Livonia for
defence against Rus’. Pskov was fortified just at the time when there was ten-
sion between it and more powerful Novgorod. Relations among the Livonian

104  Vladimir V. Sedov, “Церковь Николы на Липне и Новгородская архитектура ХIII в.

во взаимосвязи с романо-готической традицией,” in Древнерусское искусство. Русь.
Византия. Балканы. ХIII век, ed. Olga E. Etingof et al. (St Petersburg, 1997), p. 398. It is
not beyond the realms of possibility that new building techniques were adopted from the
Baltic countries. See Sedov, “Церковь,” pp. 404–08.
105  Labutina, “Псков,” p. 260. Whereas the study of Novgorod is based on written sources and
deals mostly with building in stone, research on Pskov looks at dendrochronological data
and mainly the cheaper wooden buildings.
106  Angermann, “Novgorod”; Kattinger, Gotländische Genossenschaft, pp. 362–90, 413–28.
300 chapter 7

rulers were sufficiently strained to need castles for defence against rivals and
the subjugated population, while raids by the Lithuanians extended into both
Livonia and Rus’.
As far as ecclesiastical relations are concerned, there is no evidence that
Livonia played a role after the 1240s and 1250s in papal attempts to achieve the
union of churches. The Latin Empire fell in 1261, leaving Constantinople once
again the centre of the Orthodox Byzantine Empire. Byzantium’s main oppo-
nent in the 1260s and 1270s was King Charles I of Sicily of the Anjou dynasty
(d. 1285). One of the main focuses of his political activity was his attempts to
conquer the Balkans. To strengthen his position against Charles the Byzantine
emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos began talks with the Roman curia about
ecclesiastical union, which was achieved in Lyon in 1274. This signalled an eccle-
siastical victory for the pope and a political victory for the Byzantine emperor,
but the union was not supported by the Byzantine clergy, since it would require
at least formal recognition of the primacy of the church of Rome, the use of
unleavened bread, and acceptance of the doctrine of the filioque. Pope Gregory X
died in 1276; succeeding popes took a more cautious approach to the issue of
union, until Pope Martin IV proved entirely to be the puppet of Charles I. On
the pretext that the Greeks should also be required actually to comply with
the union, the pope excommunicated Emperor Michael in 1281–82, bringing an
end to the interlude of church union.107 People in the 13th century treated the
schism as though it had just recently occurred. For example, Matthew Paris, a
staunch critic of the curia, claimed in his Chronica Maiora that the division of
the churches had emerged recently and not without the popes being to blame.108
These developments were not reflected in the church’s relationship with
Rus’. It has been argued that the greater dissemination of works against Latin
culture in Rus’ from the 13th century onwards coincided with the union
attempts with Byzantine, but this was also determined by the fact that the Serb
kormchaia (кормчая, a collection of canon law), which contained writings
in Slavonic attacking Latin culture (Byzantine works from the 11th century),
reached Rus’ precisely in 1262 and made only now the traditional Byzantine
anti-Latin polemics familiar here. The original Russian anti-Latin works were
mainly compiled in the south-west of Rus’, where the real rivalry between the

107  Donald M. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261–1453 (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 41–67;
Joseph Gill, Byzantium and the Papacy, 1198–1400 (New Brunswick, 1979), pp. 120–41. See
also Felicitas Schmieder, “Enemy, Obstacle, Ally? The Greek in Western Crusade Proposals
(1274–1311),” in . . . The Man of Many Devices, Who Wandered Full Many Ways . . . Festschrift
in Honor of János M. Bak, ed. Balázs Nagy and Marcell Sebők (Budapest, 1999), pp. 357–71.
108  Matthaei Chronica, vol. 3, p. 470. See also Brincken, Nationes, pp. 42, 47.
Neighbouring Russian Principalities 301

different confessions typical of a border zone threw into sharp relief the ques-
tion of the right faith. On the other hand, the accusations of the errors of the
Latins could also be exploited in the polemics against the princes of south-
western Rus’ in Vladimir, where the metropolitan of Kiev, Kirill, was based for
extended periods.109 It was under Kirill’s supervision or due to his influence
that the original version of the vita of Aleksandr Iaroslavich was compiled,
possibly as early as the 1260s, which records the episode in which the prince
refused to receive the papal envoys.110 However, the recent attempt by Igor
Danilevskii to justify the alleged hostility towards Catholicism in the vita of
Aleksandr Iaroslavich with reference to the policy of religious tolerance prac-
ticed by the Mongols, as opposed to “the Order” as the embodiment of a new
European and religiously intolerant form of living,111 certainly exaggerates the
importance of Livonia and Prussia for north-eastern Rus’.112 These kinds of tra-
ditional motives sometimes take on a momentum of their own.
Pskov pursued both its anti-Novgorod stance in the 14th century and its ties
to Lithuania.113 The continuing tradition of Lithuanian princes in Pskov laid
the groundwork for the veneration of Dovmont as a saint from the first half
of 14th century.114 It was not difficult to transform the veneration as a mili-
tary hero of a figure who had repeatedly defeated Livonia into the religious
vilification of Livonia as an enemy power.115 The ongoing tradition of Pskov
chronicle writing, dating to the beginning of the 14th century, was also aimed
at justifying Pskov’s position vis-à-vis Novgorod and Livonia.116 Thus the begin-
nings of a hostile attitude towards Livonia, and hence an anti-‘German’ tone in
Old Russian literature, are largely associated with Pskov. We know that Pskov

109  Neborskii, “Традиции,” pp. 380–83.

110  For an interesting but highly implausible hypothesis on the literary influence of the vita
of Aleksandr Nevskii on that of Saint Louis IX written by William of Chartres (d. before
1282), see Dzhordzhetta Revelli, “Образ “христианского государя” в житии Александра
Невского и в латинской средневековой литературе,” in Con­tributi Italiani al XII con­
gresso internazionale degli Slavisti (Cracovia 26 Agosto—3 Settembre 1998), ed. François
Esvan (Naples, 1998), pp. 188–218.
111  Danilevskii, Русские земли, pp. 218–28.
112  Khoroshkevich, “Католики,” pp. 36–37.
113  P L 1, pp. 16–17; PL 2, pp. 23, 90–92; NL1, pp. 341–42. See Klug, “Fürstentum Tver’,” pp. 104–12;
Pickhan, Gospodin Pskov, pp. 162–64; Borisov, Политика, pp. 275–83; Grabmüller, Pskover
Chroniken, pp. 154–55; Okhotnikova, Повесть, p. 66.
114  Rowell, “Between Lithuania and Ruś,” pp. 17–20.
115  Rowell, “Between Lithuania and Ruś,” pp. 18–31; Rowell, Lithuania, pp. 177–79; Prinz-aus
der Wiesche, Die Russisch-Orthodoxe Kirche, pp. 66–75.
116  Grabmüller, Pskover Chroniken, pp. 148, 166.
302 chapter 7

was one of the places where Aleksandr Iaroslavich’s vita was redacted, a text
traditionally regarded as one of the first documents of Old Russian literature
to express antagonism towards Catholic Europe. It may have been precisely
here in Pskov, in addition to the western Russian territories, that the percep-
tion of a Russian identity contrasted with that of the ‘Tatars’ and Lithuanians,
predominant in the 13th and first half of the 14th century,117 began to change
with Pskov now allied with none other than Lithuania. This would seem incon-
sistent, however, with the work’s known initial origins in north-eastern Rus’.
Despite various attempts at reconstruction, we do not know the text’s original
form. It is possible that Metropolitan Kirill, who was familiar with the attempts
at Catholicization in south-western Rus’, could have highlighted Aleksandr’s
dismissal of the papal envoys. An evaluation of the rest of the work, i.e. prin-
cipally the description of the Battle of the Neva and the Battle of the Ice, as
either hostile or neutral towards Catholicism also depends on each scholar’s
particular preconception.118 For example, on the basis of a study of the biblical
passages cited in the vita Igor Danilevskii has placed the work not so much in
the context of anti-Western writings as of general eschatological expectations.119
A disparaging attitude towards Catholicism certainly cannot be discerned
in the section of the Hypatian Chronicle relating to the 13th century, the
so-called Galician-Volhynian Chronicle covering the period from c. 1205 to
c. 1290, which narrates the deeds of Daniil Romanovich and his direct succes-
sors. Their close relations with the Polish princes tied Daniil and his brother
Vasilko to events in Poland, Bohemia, Hungary and Germany. Orthodox and
Catholic rulers are also judged in the chronicle on the basis of their relation-
ships with the Romanovich house, not their confessional adherence. The
pagans are regarded as enemies without qualification. This ‘attitude of com-
promise’ towards the West was not, however, either a feature setting apart the
princes of Galicia or an expression of their secret sympathies, but was deter-
mined by the very dynastic ties and geographical proximity absent in north-
eastern Rus’. It is entirely exaggerated to conclude that the cult of Aleksandr
Iaroslavich was a reaction by Vladimir to the ties between the rival princely
house of Galicia and Western Europe.120

117  Kappeler, “Ethnische Abgrenzung,” pp. 135–36.

118  See Müller, “Bild,” pp. 81–82; Danilevskii, Русские земли, pp. 183–206; cf. Stökl, Bild,
pp. 29–33; Floria, У истоков, pp. 209–11; Prinz-aus der Wiesche, Die Russisch-Orthodoxe
Kirche, pp. 65–66. Cf. Revelli, “Образ,” pp. 218–19.
119  Danilevskii, Русские земли, pp. 181–82.
120  Stökl, Bild, p. 53; Neborskii, “Традиции,” pp. 371–72.
Neighbouring Russian Principalities 303

The representation of princely heroes in both the chronicles and the vitae is
not based on real individuals but an idealized type: the prince is a priori a manly,
handsome, and brave man who defends his principality fighting at the head of
his army. His enemies, whether Orthodox, Catholic or pagan, deserved their
condemnation. It is not actually the prince as an individual but his position,
or more precisely the institution, that is idealized.121 Aleksandr Iaroslavich was
the prince of Novgorod and Pskov, the grand prince of Kiev and Vladimir, and
the progenitor of the Moscow princes who would assume a leading position in
Rus’ during the 14th century. Even during his lifetime he was one of the most
distinguished among Russian rulers, an achievement that was acknowledged
in various local literary traditions. In the vita and the Novgorod Chronicle the
prince defends his power and his principality by doing his duty. The treatment
of his enemies from the perspective of Novgorod, Rus’ or Orthodoxy depends
inherently on the position of each scholar, not on the medieval sources. For
example, the literary historian Anatolii Demin has characterized the attitude
of the Novgorod chronicles towards the ‘Germans’ as spiteful against a tena-
cious and irksome but not particularly dangerous assailant.122
It would make more sense, however, to examine the sections common to the
Russian and Livonian sources, instead of making rather arbitrary judgements
about the emotional tone of texts with an extremely complex literary history.
Such is the reference to the Sword Brothers and the Teutonic Knights common
to the Livonian and the Russian texts: in the older Rhymed Chronicle those
called gotes rittere123 are “knights of God” (божий дворяне)124 in the 1229 treaty
between Smolensk and the German merchants and the Hypatian Chronicle,
and “servants of God” (слугы божия)125 in the vita of Aleksandr Iaroslavich.
What is at issue is the translation: “knights of God” is transformed into
“servants of God” in the Russian texts, a term with the same inherent value and
positive tone. The first clear sign in the First Novgorod Chronicle of religious
rejection does not appear until 1349, when King Casimir the Great of Poland

121  Likhachev, Человек, pp. 34–53.

122  Anatolii S. Demin, О художественности древнерусской литературы (Moscow, 1998)
(Язык. Семиотика. Культура), pp. 635–54. See also Anna L. Khoroshkevich, “Смирение
и высокоумие (у истоков русского национального характера),” in Россия в IХ–ХХ
веках. Проблемы истории, историографии и источниковедения, ed. Iurii N. Afanasev
et al. (Moscow, 1999), pp. 490–92.
123  For example, LR, lines 599, 2010, 4732, 6481, 11436.
124  Ivanovs and Kuzņecovs, Smoļenskas-Rīgas aktis, p. 550 cf. 718; Ипатьевская летопись,
pp. 816–17.
125  Begunov, Памятник, p. 161.
304 chapter 7

(1333–70) occupied Volhynia and “did much injury to the Christians, and he
converted the sacred churches to the Latin service hated of God”.126
Just as after 1204 Orthodoxy in the Mediterranean region became increas-
ingly identified with the political entity of Byzantium, the church acquired
greater influence than ever before in the areas that remained Greek, a simi-
lar process can be observed in the area in which Livonia and Rus’ came into
contact when the political opposition began to be more clearly expressed in
religious terms with reference to Pskov. There is no doubt that, in Livonia,
Lithuania and its pagan population were still regarded as the worst of the
enemies. Rus’, which was dependent on the Lithuanians in some respects, was
among the list of enemies generally only in the sense of their accomplices.
In daily political life, just as for trade, Rus’ and Lithuania were accepted as
partners and allies. Erich Maschke (1900–82) has described this situation as
follows: “the idea of mission lived on only in the mutual recriminations”.127
In the polemical sources each side emphasizes the other’s alliance with the
pagans and, in some cases, with the schismatics as well, while seeking to refute
similar accusations made against it. Any deeds that did not comply with preva-
lent moral and legal rules could be justified on the basis of Livonia’s location
on the frontaria with the pagans.128
The schismatics were occasionally ascribed a more autonomous signifi-
cance as Livonia’s enemies due to the military disputes with Pskov in the
1340s.129 The same connection was made in the sources in Prussia: the Ruthenia
of the Prussian chronicles was politically a part of Lithuania in which the con-
flicts with the Lithuanians took place.130 It must be remembered that each
region identified a different enemy ‘Rus’’—Prussia had the Black Rus’ (region
of upper reaches of the Neman River), Poland the west Russian t­erritories,

126  N L1, p. 361.

127  Maschke, Der deutsche Orden, p. 63.
128  For example, LUB 2, nos. 741, 759; Hermanni Chronicon, pp. 83, 149–52, 153–54; Arthur
Motzki, “Livonica aus den Supplikenregistern von Avignon (1342 Okt. 11–1366 Mai 9),”
Mitt. Riga 21 (1911–1928), 159, no. 128.
129  Hermanni Chronicon, pp. 68–70; Bartholomäus Hoeneke, Liivimaa noorem riimkroonika,
pp. 66–76, 86–88; LUB 2, nos. 809, 829; DD 3/1, no. 329; 3/2, no. 171.
130  For example, Wigand von Marburg, Die Chronik. Originalfragmente, lateinische Ueber­
setzung und sonstige Ueberreste, ed. Theodor Hirsch, in SRP, vol. 2, pp. 454–55; Peter,
Chronicon, III.166 (161), p. 128 (the 1270s); III.291(281), pp. 171–72 (1306). Cf. Keller,
“Perspektiven,” p. 106; Genadz N. Saganovich, “Русь в прусских хрониках ХIV–ХV веков,”
in Славяне и их соседи 9, 1999, pp. 100–04; Khenrik Samsonovich [Henryk Samsonowicz],
“Русские земли глазами жителей Любека ХII–ХV веков,” in От Древней Руси к России
нового времени, p. 439.
Neighbouring Russian Principalities 305

Sweden had Novgorod and Livonia had principally Pskov and Polotsk. The
Moscow Germanist Catherine Squires has distinguished between the language
used by the Teutonic Order and the Hanseatic towns in polemical texts: while
the former represent the Russians as schismatic enemies, the latter do not give
expression to any hostile attitude towards the populations of Novgorod, Pskov,
and other Russian towns.131 The absence of confessional antagonism in the
urban milieu and in trade has been repeatedly pointed out.132 Nevertheless,
we would still have to ask how the sources for major events which originated
in the interest of the Order, the Swedish kings or the archbishops of Riga
reflect actual relations. As repeatedly stressed in this work, these sources are
polemical materials in which the neighbouring community with a different
faith functions as an argument. Relations between the Hanseatic towns and
their Russian counterparts were also often tense. These tensions—in general
they took the form of unusual incidents whose very exceptionality gave rise
to a large amount of source material, which has in turn become part of the
history of trade—did not need to be exploited against anyone or for anyone’s
protection. It was in the interest of both sides to resolve any difficulties linked
to trade; the possibility and necessity of trade was conceded by all concerned.
We cannot distinguish between territorial lords hostile to Rus’ and towns well-
disposed towards it, but only between an ‘neutral’ and a polemical group of
sources. This does not mean that the burghers did not express their rejection
of the Russians’ schismatic faith or that the territorial lords or prelates were
not willing to engage in the peaceful exchange of goods or enter into political
alliances with the Russians—as the latter point has been convincingly dem-
onstrated through a historical analysis of their political relations. For exam-
ple, Norbert Angermann has made the following observation about a slightly
later period: “In connection with the conflicts there are suddenly increased
references in Hanseatic correspondence to ungeloven (unbelievers) or aff­
gesnedenen (schismatic) Russians, which are terms otherwise used only rarely
when applied to trading partners”.133

131  Squires, Die Hanse in Novgorod, pp. 31–34. Cf. Tiina Kala, “The Incorporation of the
Northern Baltic Lands into the Western Christian World,” in Murray, Crusade and
Conversion, pp. 15–19.
132  Norbert Angermann and Ulrike Endell, “Die Partnerschaft mit der Hanse,” in Herrmann,
Deutsche und Deutschland aus russischer Sicht, pp. 99–115; Squires, Die Hanse in Novgorod,
pp. 34, 150. Cf. Juozas Jakštas, “Das Baltikum in der Kreuzzugsbewegung des 14. Jhs. Die
Nachrichten Philipps de Mézières über die baltischen Gebiete,” Commentationes Balticae.
Jahrbuch des Baltischen Forschungsinstituts 6–7 1958–59 (1959), 146, 174.
133  Angermann and Endell, “Partnerschaft,” p. 100; See also Khoroshkevich, “Католики,” p. 48;
On the pragmatism of the confessional frontier, see Charles J. Halperin, “The Ideology of
306 chapter 7

The history of their political relations also explains why the Russians were
considered second-class enemies overall from the Livonian perspective com-
pared to the Lithuanians.134 Only gradually did this order begin to change
depending on the specific circumstances.135 The conception of the Russians as
schismatics rather than fellow Christians started to become more firmly rooted
in the literature from the mid-14th century onwards. For example, Hermann
von Wartberge when compiling his chronicle (1370s) translated the Rûzen used
in the Rhymed Chronicle (occupants of Gerzike) with the word scismatici in
the context of events at the beginning of the 13th century and placed the cap-
ture of Pskov c. 1240 in the context of the promulgation of the faith.136
In Livonia the awareness of its position at the extreme margin of Chri­
stendom is directed most markedly against the schismatic Russians in the
self-perception or self-presentation of the bishopric of Dorpat during the
14th century. The sources for this mainly relate to the state of war in the 1340s
and the castle of Neuhausen built directly on the border in 1342. The bishopric
of Dorpat was located in ultramarinis partibus, “where Christianity ends, in
the vicinity and near heretical peoples, namely the schismatic Russians and the
infidel Lithuanians”.137 The bishopric was located more than sixty days’ jour-
ney from the papal curia, in the frontier zone of the infidels.138 The bishop of

Silence: Prejudice and Pragmatism on the Medieval Religious Frontier,” in Comparative

Studies in Society and History 26 (1984), 442–66.
134  For example, LUB 2, no. 822 (1344); Hermanni Chronicon, p. 150, para. 9; pp. 154–55 (1366);
Die Recesse und andere Akten der Hansetage von 1256–1430, vol. 1, ed. Karl Koppmann
(Leipzig, 1870), no. 398 (1368); LUB 6, no. 2892.
135  Motzki, “Livonica,” p. 147, no. 100.
136  L R, lines 669–86; cf. Hermanni Chronicon, pp. 27, 29 (“ad augmentandum numerum
conversorum”). See also Nazarova, “Православие,” p. 205. A late example in which the
“pagans” of a text from the 13th century are viewed as “Russians” in the 16th century can be
found in Joseph Prinz, “Aus der Frühzeit des Territoriums der Bischöfe von Münster. Das
Bruchstück eines bischöflichen Tafelgüterverzeichnisses (um 1250) und Ritter Lubbert
von Schwansbell, Offizial zu Billerbeck,” Studia westfalica. Beiträge zur Kirchengeschichte
und religiösen Volkskunde Westfalens. Festschrift für Alois Schröer, ed. Max Bierbaum
(Münster, 1973) (Westfalia sacra 4), pp. 275–76.
137  Motzki, “Livonica,” p. 119, no. 24; LUB 6, no. 2824 (1346). The “overseas lands” could
reflect the Baltic’s actual geographical location (e.g. Zeugenverhör, p. 206 supplement IX,
paras. 290–91; cf. Benninghoven, Orden, pp. 417–18, no. 7), but mostly this expression cre-
ates a link to crusading ideology: ‘in ultramarinis partibus’ primarily means ‘in the Holy
Land’. See also Motzki, “Livonica,” p. 111, no. 1; AV, no. 299 (1342); Arbusow, “Römischer
Arbeitsbericht,” Latvijas Ūniversitātes Raksti 17 (1928), pp. 412–14, no. 31 (1354); pp. 416–18,
no. 33 (1360); Motzki, “Livonica,” pp. 163–64, no. 139 (1364).
138  Motzki, “Livonica,” p. 164, no. 139 (1364).
Neighbouring Russian Principalities 307

Dorpat had his castle at Neuhausen built “in the most remote corner of his
diocese, on the frontier with the enemies of the right faith, the Russians”.139 As
might be expected, this material comes mainly from the Avignon register of
supplications or responses to them: this argument dealt with the bishopric’s
special location, which could be cited when asserting its claims, but was at
the same time the formula that had emerged to express the situation at the
time. For when necessary it could also be affirmed of the bishop of Ösel, whose
diocese bordered neither directly on Lithuania nor Rus’, but who also found
himself in the midst of newly baptized peoples and schismatics.140 At the end
of the 14th century the Teutonic Order accused the bishop of Dorpat, Dietrich
Damerow, of having fought the Order with help from the Russians.141
Lithuania and Rus’ as dangerous enemies were contrasted in this rhetoric
with tota Christianitas as a metaphor for Livonia. This referred to the Livonian
territorial lords and estates (including those from northern Estonia). This
entity was not of course neutral either, but could be invoked as a political argu-
ment: “the whole of Christianity” had been heralded in the alliances led by
the Order (1304, 1316) against the city and archbishop of Riga.142 This contrast
was emphasized even further by naming the pagans and schismatics among
Riga’s allies. The idea of a schismatic enemy was probably even more strongly
engrained in Sweden, where the Russians had become the opponents earlier
during the crusade, than in Livonia. In the Erikskrönikan the Christians are
contrasted with the Russians and the pagans or Ingrians and Karelians in a
much more direct form than in the older Livonian Rhymed Chronicle.143
It has been argued that the archbishop of Riga, Frederick Pernstein, also had
plans to bring about the submission of the church of Rus’. This idea derives
partly from a historiographical tradition in which all the major figures from
early Livonian history are said to have dreamed of bringing the Russians under
the obedience of the church of Rome. This is also attributed to the 14th cen-
tury, when Rome persevered in its attempts to unify the churches. The wish of
the ruler of many Russians, Grand Duke Gediminas, to be baptized, which he

139  Motzki, “Livonica,” p. 129, no. 52 (“in extremis sue diocesis in fronteria Ruthenorum
hostium fidei orthodoxe”); Arbusow, “Römischer Arbeitsbericht,” Latvijas Ūniversi­tātes
Raksti 17 (1928), pp. 370–71, no. 3 (1354, “capella castri Vrowenborch Tarbatensis diocesis
in extremis dicte diocesis positus et fronteria Ruthenorum infidelium situati”); Motzki,
“Livonica,” p. 130, no. 52 (1354).
140  Motzki, “Livonica,” p. 155, no. 119 (1363).
141  L UB 4, no. 1404; cf. nos. 1383, 1399, 1400, 1412, 1421, 1425. For a later example, see LUB 8,
no. 883 (1434).
142  Kostrzak, “Frühe Formen,” pp. 168–69.
143  Erikskrönikan, lines 485–87, 494–95.
308 chapter 7

gave expression to during Pernstein’s episcopate, does indeed provide a cer-

tain foundation for this belief. Rasa Mažeika and Stephen Rowell have found
support for their argument in a work from Frederick Pernstein’s extensive and
remarkable library. This concerns the Passagium novum,144 which can be iden-
tified with a work with the title Directorium ad faciendum passagium trans­
marinum presented as a gift to King Philip VI of France (1328–50) in 1330. This
sets out a plan for a crusade to the Holy Land whose precondition and prelimi-
nary stage is the subjugation of the schismatics—the Greeks and the Christians
in the Balkans—to the church of Rome. According to Mažeika and Rowell,
Archbishop Frederick gave the author of the manuscript information about
the Russians, while the submission of Rus’ is in any case said to have played an
important role in the work.145 The text is indeed extremely hostile towards the
schismatics, although here Rassia does not mean Rus’, but Serbian territory.146
In the introductory part there is, however, a section that says the following:
in Europe there are different peoples, among whom are the Christians who
“are not unified with us in the same faith and doctrine”. These were Raceni (or
Rutheni), who lived next to Bohemia and Poland147 and adhered to the errors
of the Greeks.148 Unlike most crusading propaganda, it is true that this particu-
lar account does not originate from the Mediterranean region, but there is no
evidence that it arose under the influence of Frederick Pernstein or reflects
his views. There were numerous clergy in Avignon from the whole of Europe,
including from Prussia or Poland, all of whom would have been able to provide
information about eastern European geography.

144  Arbusow, “Römischer Arbeitsbericht,” Latvijas Ūniversitātes Raksti 17 (1928), p. 384. In

1325 a mensale ruthenicum was in possession of the archbishop. See Arbusow, “Römischer
Arbeitsbericht,” Latvijas Ūniversitātes Raksti 17 (1928), pp. 311, 382.
145  Mažeika and Rowell, “Zelatores,” pp. 61–62.
146  Directorium ad faciendum passagium transmarinum, ed. C. Raymond Beazley, in The
American Historical Review 12 (1906–1907), 815–17 among others. On Rassia, see Brincken,
Nationes, p. 141.
147  Directorium ad faciendum passagium, p. 820; cf. p. 823.
148  Directorium ad faciendum passagium, p. 89.
Conclusion

The major transformation that took place in the eastern Baltic in the 13th cen-
tury, when the pagan lands, or rather those regarded as such by their conquerors,
were captured from Finland in the north to Prussia in the south and converted
to Catholicism, was far from an isolated phenomenon. It is not always possible
to distinguish clearly from the modern perspective what factors among the
ideological, social, and economic developments can be regarded as intrinsic
to Livonia and what elements were due to outside influences. The sources are
often brief and not always clear. Moreover, when interpreting them the reason
and purpose behind their composition must never be forgotten. Irrespective of
whether they were written in Livonia or in the chanceries of western Europe
on the basis of information supplied by the parties to a particular conflict, they
were mostly polemical in nature. They also belong to an established tradition
in Latin literary culture of how to depict the enemy—Saracens, pagans, and
schismatics. The realities of a ‘new’ geographical space connected to Latin
Europe were adapted to preconceived language and explanatory models.
This is the background to the politically motivated ideas of Catholicism,
Orthodoxy, and paganism in the contemporary sources. It was possible to
describe contemporary political rivalries with reference to a threat—real or
imagined—from pagans or schismatics. In the language used by the contem-
porary Livonian sources it is virtually impossible to separate political and reli-
gious categories. Rus’ and its inhabitants are repeatedly described as schismatic
in the 13th century. Although this placed them outside Latin Christianity, it still
did not put them on a par with the pagans. Whereas under Bishop Meinhard
the Livonian church represented a small community of missionaries, mer-
chants, and a few baptized Livs in a land on the lower Daugava River owing
tribute to the prince of Polotsk, by the 14th century the Orthodox Russian, and
Catholic Livonian territories were equal powers. These might not only wage
war against one another but could also act as allies.
During the course of the 13th century no crusade was planned in Livonia
directly against Rus’. The crusades and missionary wars and conquests in what
was then the predominantly pagan territory of Votia did inevitably lead to
clashes with Novgorod, but they were always justified in the Livonian sources
with reference to the pagan, not schismatic neighbours. Territories were also
captured in the Daugava region and Lettgallia, parts of which at least had for-
merly been controlled by Polotsk or Pskov, but here too the terminology used
in the sources always refers to pagan wars.

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310 Conclusion

When the Russian principalities were occupied by the Mongols in the 1240s
and 1250s, the Russians began to be represented as the subjects of the Mongols,
especially in Poland and Hungary. The crusades preached against the Mongols
in the third quarter of the 13th century were never carried out, but their propa-
gation was nevertheless a crucial step in the creation of the idea of the ‘schis-
matic Russians’ as the enemy. This coexisted with another idea, that of Russian
princes willing to recognize the authority of Rome. The political situation was
decisive here too: the depiction of a territory in Rus’ as schismatic or willing
to join the union of the churches depended less on the views of the Russians
and their rulers and instead reflected more the position of the Latin powers
whose interests the chroniclers and chancery clerks defended and which were
manifested in the petitions sent to the papal curia to obtain privileges and con-
firmations. The means available to the papacy of gathering information about
eastern Europe and of influencing events at the periphery were extremely lim-
ited. Only very seldom can it truly be demonstrated that the popes even held
such a wish. The decisive role was played, without exception, by local rulers. In
the event that they did try to gain papal support, it was usually because they
were embroiled in a power struggle with one of their co-religionists, such that
any argument referring to their schismatic neighbours was merely a rhetorical
commonplace. The anti-schismatic religious contrasts were still not capable
of causing conflicts in north-eastern Europe in the 13th century. Just as south-
western Rus’, Poland, and Hungary, so too Livonia, Novgorod and Pskov formed
a common political space at the time. Within that space no great importance
was placed on distinguishing between Roman and Greek Christianity.
The economic and social context of this phenomenon was provided by the
early Hanseatic trade in the eastern Baltic region and the emergence of towns
in Livonia that profited from trade with Russia and where—at least in the
cases of Riga, Dorpat, Fellin, and Kokenhusen—as well as the local population
and that of German origin, traders and craftsmen came from Rus’ to settle,
enjoying rights of citizenship to some extent. The territorial lords also profited
from trade, which in turn depended on political stability.
There is therefore no evidence for the 13th and beginning of the 14th cen-
tury that a crusade against Rus’ was planned or implemented in Livonia. It is
true that Swedish expansion in Karelia can be interpreted as a series of cru-
sades against territories controlled by Rus’, yet here too it was the pagans, not
the schismatics, who were depicted as the opponents in the sources, at least
until the turn of the century—the Russians, who also claimed control of the
strategically important river Neva region, were merely seen as helpers and
supporters of the pagans. The argument that Livonia was endangered by the
pagan and schismatic neighbours became an established theme in the con-
Conclusion 311

flicts between Livonian rulers, since in this way each could justify its selec-
tion of allies and condemn than of the other side. Livonia was increasingly
conceived as a region at the outermost reaches of Christendom. Thus the fact
that the schismatic beliefs of Rus’ in the sources relating to Livonia begin to
be mentioned more frequently from the early 14th century than before is not
so much an indication of greater tension between Livonia and Rus’, but rather
of the increasingly strained situation within Livonia since the last quarter of
the 13th century. These tensions led the different factions in Livonia to use the
most compromising arguments at their disposal against their opponents.
The 14th century also saw improved communication between Latin Europe’s
north-eastern periphery and its core areas, while the quantity and range of
documents increased. This in turn reinforced the idea of schismatic Rus’.
It is clear, therefore, that very little can be explained by the concept of the
‘Russian threat’ in the 13th and 14th centuries in Livonian history and that
the sense of fear of such a ‘Russian threat’ need not be dismissed but nor should
it be overestimated. It should be remembered that between 1270 and 1350 there
was no military conflict on Livonia’s eastern frontier that was not simultane-
ously a conflict against pagan Lithuania. Consequently, the commonplace of
the dangerous schismatics in Rus’ during this period is, in a sense, a by-product
of the fighting against Lithuania on Livonia’s southern border as well as of the
struggle for hegemony within Livonia itself. Christianity’s external enemies
served to justify the efforts to achieve internal unity among (Latin) Christians.
The Livonian warring parties, however, understood this not in the sense of a
compromise solution or harmony, but in terms of their own supremacy.
Appendix

Secular and Ecclesiastical Rulers

Bishops of Üxküll and Riga

Meinhard 1186–1196 Albert 1199–1229

Berthold 1196–1198 Nicholas 1229–1253

Archbishops of Riga

Albert Suerbeer 1245–1273 Johannes von Schwerin 1294–1300

Johannes von Lune 1273–1284 Isarnus 1300–1302
Johannes von Vechten 1285–1294 Frederick Pernstein 1304–1341

Bishops of Leal/Dorpat

Theodoric 1211–1219 Bernard 1289–1299

Hermann 1219–1247 Theodoric Vyshusen 1302/03–1312
Unknown Nicholas 1313–1323
Alexander before Engelbert von Dolen 1323–1341
1263–1268
Frederick of Haseldorp 1268–1288

Bishops of Ösel (Ösel-Wiek)

Gottfried 1228–1229 Conrad before 1297–after

1307
Henry 1234–before 1262 Hartung 1310–1321
Hermann von 1262–after 1285 Jacob 1322–1337
Bekeshovede
Henry before 1290–1294 Hermann 1338–1362
Osenbrugge

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Appendix 313

Bishops of Reval

Wescelinus 1219–1227 Kanut ca. 1295–1298

Torkill 1238/1240–1260 Heinrich 1298–nach 1318
Thrugot 1262–1279 Otto ca. 1323
Johannes 1280–1293/94 Olav 1323–1351
Johannes Tristevere ca. 1294–1298
(claimant)

Masters of the Order of the Sword Brothers

Wenno 1204–1209 Volkwin 1209–1236

Provincial Masters of the Teutonic Order in Livonia

Hermann Balk 1237–1238/39 Konrad von 1279–1281

Feuchtwangen
Dietrich von 1238/39–1241 Wilhelm von Nindorf 1282–1287
Grüningen 1242–1246
Andreas von Felben 1241 Konrad von Hattstein 1288–1289
1248–1253
Heinrich von 1246/1248 Halt 1290–1293
Heimburg
Anno von 1254–1256 Heinrich von Dincklage 1295–1296
Sangerhausen
Burchard von 1257–1260 Bruno 1296–1298
Hornhausen
Werner 1261–1263 Gottfried Rogge 1298–1307
Konrad von Mandern 1263–1266 Gerhard von Jork 1309–1322
Otto von Lauterberg 1267–1270 Reimar Hahn 1324–1328
Walter von Nordeck 1270–1273 Eberhard von Monheim 1328–1340
Ernst von Ratzeburg 1274–1279
314 Appendix

Grand Princes of Vladimir

Andrei Bogolyubskii 1155–1175 Iaroslav Iaroslavich 1263–1272

Mikhail Iur’evich 1175–1177 Vasilii Iaroslavich 1272–1276
Vsevolod ‘Bolshoe 1176–1212 Dmitrii Aleksandrovich 1276–1281
Gnezdo’ 1283–1294
Iurii Vsevolodovich 1212–1216 Andrei Aleksandrovich 1281–1283
1218–1238 1294–1304
Konstantin Vsevolodovich 1216–1218 Mikhail Iaroslavich 1304–1317
Iaroslav Vsevolodovich 1238–1246 Iurii Danilovich 1317–1322
Sviatoslav Vsevolodovich 1246–1248 Dmitrii Mikhailovich 1322–1326
Mikhail Iaroslavich 1248 Aleksandr Mikhailovich 1326–1327
Andrei Iaroslavich 1249–1252 Ivan Danilovich 1328–1340
Aleksandr Iaroslavich 1252–1263

Genealogical Tables
Appendix 315
316 Appendix

Map Livonia and its Neighbours in the Thirteenth Century

Appendix 317

Map North-Eastern Europe in the Thirteenth Century

 318 Appendix

Multilingual Place-Name Concordance

Names used in Medieval Old Russian Estonian Latvian Other

this book Latin or languages
(German Middle Low
variant in German
brackets where
different)

Adsel (castle) Atzel Говья Koivaliina Gaujiena

Adsel Adsel, Adzel Adzele
(district)
Bersohn Bērzaune
Dagö Dageida, Додон- Hiiumaa
Dagden остров
Dorpat Tarbatum Юрьев Tartu Tērbata
Daugava Duna Двина Väina Daugava Polish:
(Düna) Dźwina
Dünaburg Невгиня Daugavpils, Polish:
Dinaburga, Dyneburg
Naujene
Dünamünde Dunemunde Daugav­grīva
Durben Durben Durbe
Finland сумь Finnish:
Proper Varsinais-
Suomi;
Swedish:
Egentliga
Finland
Embach Mater Омовжа Emajõgi
aquarum,
Embeke
Ermes Ergemis Härgmäe Ērģeme
Estonia Estonia Чудская Eesti Igaunija Finnish: Viro
(Estland) земля
Falkenau Walchenna Kärkna
(since the
17th c.),
Muuge
 Appendix 319

Names used in Medieval Old Russian Estonian Latvian Other

this book Latin or languages
(German Middle Low
variant in German
brackets where
different)

Fellin Velin, Вельяд Viljandi Vīlande

Viliende
Gdov, Gdow Waldow, Гдов Oudova Finnish:
Woldow Outova
Gerzike Gercike Jersika
Gotland Gotlandia Готский Ojamaa
берег
Hapsal Hapsel Апсель Haapsalu
Harria Harien Harju,
(Harrien) Harjumaa
Holme, Holmia Holm Mārtiņsala
Martins­holm
Izborsk Isborch Изборск Irboska
(Isborsk)
Jerwia Gerwa Järva,
(Jerwen) Järvamaa
Kexholm Корела Swedish:
Kexholm;
Finnish:
Käkisalmi
Koporye Копорья Finnish:
(Kopor’e, Kaprio;
Kaporien) Russian:
Копорье
Kirrumpäh Кирьяпива Kirumpää
Koken­husen Kukenoys Куконойс Koknese
Curonia Curonia Курская Kuramaa Kurzeme
(Kurland) земля
Lange­brücke Pons longus Pikasilla
Leal Leale Лиговерь Lihula
Lenne­warden Lenewarde Леневард, Lielvārde
Линвор
 320 Appendix

Multilingual Place-Name Concordance (cont.)

Names used in Medieval Old Russian Estonian Latvian Other

this book Latin or languages
(German Middle Low
variant in German
brackets where
different)

Lettgallia Lettigallia Лотыгола Latgale

Livonia Livonia Ливонская Liivimaa Vidzeme, Polish:
(Livland) земля, Līvzeme Inflanty
Немецкая
земля
Gauja Coiva Koiva Gauja
(Livlän­dische
Aa)
Lake Lubāns Lubane Lubānas ez.
(Lubahnsee)
Ludsen Ludsen Лужа (Lutsi) Ludza Polish: Lucyn
Luga Lowke, Луга Luuga, Finnish:
Lauke Lauga Laukaan­joki;
Votic: Laugaz,
Laukaa
Maholm Viru-Nigula
Marienburg Marien­borch Волыст, Aluliina Alūksne
Алыст
Marien­ Marienhus Улех Viļaka
hausen,
Villack
Meerapalu Миро­ Meerapalu
(Merapallo) повна (?)
Mitau Mitowe Miitavi Jelgava
Nalsen Nalsen Nalša Lithuanian:
Nalšia
Narva River Narva Нарова Narva
(Narova,
Narowa)
Narva, Narwa Narva Ругодив Narva
 Appendix 321

Names used in Medieval Old Russian Estonian Latvian Other

this book Latin or languages
(German Middle Low
variant in German
brackets where
different)

Neuhausen Novum Новый Vastseliina

castrum городок
Nöteborg Орехов Finnish:
Pähkinä­saari;
Swedish:
Nöteborg
Odenpäh Odenpe, Медвежя Otepää
Caput ursi голова
Ogre (Oger) Wogene Угр Ogre
Ösel Osilia Островс­кая Saaremaa Sāmsala
земля
Paddas Кегола (?) Pada
Padis Padis Падца Padise
Papendorf Kegeln Rubene
Lake Peipus Pebese, Чудское Peipsi Peipuss
(Peipussee) Peybas озеро
Pernau Perona Пернов Pärnu Pērnava
Peude Poyde Pöide
Pskov Plescekowe Плесков, Pihkva Plēskava Russian:
(Pleskau) Пьсков Псков
Polotsk Ploceke, Полочьк, Belarussian:
(Polozk) Plotzekewe Полтеск Полацк;
Polish: Połock
Purnau Pornuwe Purnava
Reval (city Revele Колывань Tallinn
and castle)
Reval, Revala Revalia Rävala,
(region) Revala
Riga Riga Рига Riia Rīga
Ronneburg Ronneborch Ровной Rauna
Rositten Rositen Резица (Räisaku) Rēzekne Polish:
Rzeżyca
 322 Appendix

Multilingual Place-Name Concordance (cont.)

Names used in Medieval Old Russian Estonian Latvian Other

this book Latin or languages
(German Middle Low
variant in German
brackets where
different)

Sackala Saccala Sakala Sakala

Savolax, Savo Savonia Finnish: Savo;
Swedish:
Savolax
Samogitia Samogitia Жемоть Žemaitija Lithuanian:
Žemaitija;
Polish:
Żmudź
Schwanen­ Гольбен (Kulna) Gulbene
burg
Segewold Sygewalde Зелиболт Sigulda
Selonia Selonia Sēlija
Semgallia Semigallia Зимгола Zemgale Lithuanian:
Žiemgala
Sontack Sontagana Soontagana
Tavastia Tavastia емь Finnish:
Häme;
Swedish:
Tavastland
Tolowa Tolowa Tālava
Torma Tõrma
Treyden Thoreyda Торойта Turaida
Trikaten Tricatua Трекат Trikāta
Ugaunia Ugaunia Ugandi Ugaunija
Üxküll Ykescola Üksküla Ikšķile
Waiga Waiga Клин (?) Vaiga
Warbola Warbola Воробьин Varbola
Warkland Warka (?) Varakļāni Polish:
Warklaný
Weißen­stein Wittenstein Пайда Paide
 Appendix 323

Names used in Medieval Old Russian Estonian Latvian Other

this book Latin or languages
(German Middle Low
variant in German
brackets where
different)

Wenden Wenden Кесь, Võnnu Cēsis Polish: Kieś

Пертуев
Wesenberg Wesenberg Раковор Rakvere
Viborg Wyborg Выбор Finnish:
Viipuri;
Swedish:
Viborg
Wiek Maritima Вицкая Läänemaa
земля
Vironia Vironia Вирская Viru,
(Wierland) земля Virumaa
Wilno Vilna Вильно Viļņa Lithuanian:
Vilnius;
Polish: Wilno
Wirzjärv Worce­gerwe Võrtsjärv
Wolmar Woldemar, Володи­ Volmari Valmiera
Wolmer мерец
Ymera Ymera Ümera Jumara
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Index
The modern place-names are added in
brackets. See also the place-name concordance
p. 318.
Abel, king of Denmark 157, 169
Abelen, Latvia 114
Åbo (Turku), Finland 50
Abrene, Latvia 114
Absalon, archbishop of Lund 48
Acre, Israel 288
Adam of Bremen, chronicler 182
Adolf, count of Holstein 76
Adsel, Latvia 65, 67, 73, 109, 114, 185, 254,
256, 263
Afanasii Danilovich, prince of Novgorod 273
Aigust, prince 252
Aizkraukle, see Ascheraden
Alban, martyr 25
Alberic de Trois-Fontaines, chronicler 34
Albert, bishop of Riga 7, 9, 53, 55–56, 68n31,
77, 85–99, 101, 103, 106–107, 109–110,
113–114, 116–124, 129, 131, 136, 180–181,
183–185, 207, 248–249, 254, 259
Albert, count of Holstein 86–87, 138
Albert, count of Saxony 138
Albert Suerbeer, archbishop of Riga 130,
197–199, 201, 203–205, 212–218, 223, 225,
229–232, 238, 283
Albertus de Mediolano, canon of Ravenna
286
Alebrand, priest 111, 113
Aleksandr Glebovich, prince of
Smolensk 265
Aleksandr Iaroslavich (Nevskii), grand prince
of Vladimir 2–3, 5, 11–12, 105, 108, 128, 134,
139–141, 143–144, 147–149, 151–156, 158–162,
164–169, 202n19, 214n76, 219–228, 230–231,
233, 235, 252–253, 301–303
Aleksandr Vsevolodovich, prince of Belz
35n59
Aleksii II, patriarch of Moscow 4
Alempois, Estonia 142
Alexander, bishop of Dorpat 244, 245n54
Alexander III, pope 50–51
Alexander IV, pope 204, 206n37, 216–217,
229, 231n160, 281, 293
Alexius, Dominican 218
Alūksne, see Marienburg
Ammann, Albert, historian 165
Amragan, grand baskak 249
Anders Sunesen, archbishop of Lund 49, 83,
85–86, 184
Andreas von Felben, master of the Teutonic
Order 141, 159n136, 163, 200–202
Andreas, vice-master of the Teutonic
Order 250
Andrei Aleksandrovich, grand prince of
Vladimir 253, 257, 263–264, 269
Andrei Iaroslavich, grand prince of
Vladimir 158, 161, 167, 219, 221–222,
224–226
Andrei Vorotislavich, boyar 252
Andrew, prince of Hungary 35n59, 172
Andrew II, king of Hungary 35n59, 172–173
Angermann, Norbert, historian 7, 305
Anna Ioannovna, empress of Russia 70
Anna Leopoldovna, regent of Russia 70
Ansgar, archbishop of Bremen 47
Antonii, archbishop of Novgorod 32n46
Arabs 284
Arbusow, Leonid Jr, historian 9
Arkona, Germany 48
Armagh, Ireland 197, 216
Armenia 184
Arnold, provost of Riga 203n22
Arnold, Sword Brother 97
Arnold of Lübeck, chronicler 90
Arsenii, archbishop of Novgorod 128
Ascheraden (Aizkraukle) 91
Austria 4, 36–37, 176, 198n4, 217
Autine, Latvia 96, 102, 109–110
Avignon, France 272, 286–287, 307–308
Avvakumov, Georgii, historian 21
Baghdad, Iraq 284
Baldwin of Aulne, papal legate 14, 130–133,
135–136, 138, 140, 142, 193
Baltic Sea passim
374
Bamberg, Germany 49
Bari, Italy 24
Bashkirs 177
Batu, Mongol khan 145, 212, 219–221, 279,
284
Baumgarten, Nikolai, historian 79
Béla IV, king of Hungary 36, 178, 211, 215n82,
217, 280, 282
Beletskii, Sergei V., historian 236n13
Belgorod (Bilogorodka), Ukraine 211
Benedict, Danish prince 25
Benninghoven, Friedrich, historian 101,
140–141, 146, 153, 164, 185
Berezne, Latvia 114
Berke, Mongol ruler 284
Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux 33
Bernard, bishop of Dorpat 293
Bernard, bishop of Paderborn 117
Bernard of Lippe, bishop of Selonia 53, 87
Bernhard von Hoje, knight 102n181
Bersohn (Bērzaune), Latvia 208
Berthold, bishop of Livonia 53, 77–78, 85
Bērzaune, see Bersohn
Beverin, Latvia 109, 112
Bielefeld, Germany 189n80
Birger, jarl of Sweden 150, 152, 190
Birger, king of Sweden 258, 270
Birger Brosa, jarl of Sweden 83
Biron, Ernst, duke of Curonia 70
Black Sea 15, 37
Bohemia 33, 217–218, 280–281, 283, 302, 308
Bolesław I, prince of Sandomierz 35n59
Bolesław III the Wrymouth, duke of
Poland 35n59, 36
Bolesław IV the Curly, duke of Poland 35n59
Bolesław V the Chaste, duke of Poland 211,
217n91, 280
Bolghar, Tatarstan 177
Boniface VIII, pope 268
Boris, martyr 148
Boris, prince of Polotsk 105–106
Boris, prince of Pskov 265
Boris Andreevich, prince 269
Boris Davydovich, legendary prince of Polotsk
69–70, 105
Boris Ginvilovich, legendary prince of
Polotsk 105
index
Boris Negochevich, tysiatskii of Novgorod
128, 133–134
Boris Vasilkovich, prince of Rostov 226–227
Borisov, Nikolai, historian 274n179
Bornhöved, Germany 88
Bosnia, Bosnians 47, 280
Botulf, abbot 25
Brandenburg, Germany 283
Bremen, Germany 47, 48, 53, 64, 76–77,
80–82, 84–85, 87, 106, 129–130, 197, 286
Briacheslav, prince of Polotsk 105, 202n19
Bruno, master of the Teutonic Order 260
Bruno of Schauenburg, bishop of Olomouc
283
Bulgaria, Bulgarians 21, 47, 171, 178, 184, 189,
211, 280
Bunge, Friedrich Georg von, historian 8,
158n132
Burchard, provost of Bremen 84
Burundai, Mongol emir 280
Byzantium 15, 20–25, 31n41, 35, 42n89,
46–47, 82, 97, 99, 214n76, 219, 300, 304
Caesarius of Heisterbach, Cistercian 182
Cammin (Kamień), Poland 214n78
Casimir, duke of Kujawy 217n91
Casimir, legendary duke of Pomerania 69
Casimir III the Great, king of Poland 303
Casimir the Just, duke of Poland 35n59, 177
Caspian Sea 37
Caupo, elder of the Livs 184
Cēsis, see Wenden
Cesvaine, see Sesswegen
Champagne 34
Charles I, king of Sicily 300
Chernigov, Ukraine 16, 23n12, 80, 108, 128,
134, 165, 176, 211–212, 282
Chiemsee, Germany 197
Christian, bishop of Lithuania 201–202
Christian, bishop of Prussia 177, 179, 192,
197–198, 205
Christina, princess of Norway 233
Christopher, duke of Estonia 267
Christopher I, king of Denmark 293
Chuds 62–63, 83–84, 117, 128, 139, 154–155,
161, 225, 230, see also Estonians
Clement III, pope 80, 82, 184
index
Clement VI, pope 245n54
Cologne, Germany 39, 189n80
Coloman, prince of Halych 172n6, 173, 178
Conrad, bishop of Ösel 289
Conrad, duke of Masovia 35n59, 176–177,
179, 212
Conrad of Üxküll (Meyendorff), knight 102
Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey 7, 20–21,
31n41, 32, 47, 171, 184, 300
Croatia 172n6
Cromer, Martin, see Martin Cromer
Culm (Chełmno), Poland 197, 198n4, 201,
204
Cumania, Cumans 46, 280, 282n14, 283, 293
Curonia, Curonians 14–15, 45, 50, 52, 70, 83,
89, 130–131, 142, 159n136, 163–164, 198n4,
204, 227–228, 231n161, 238, 278n198
Cyprus 284
Dalmatia 172n6
Damascus 37
Dangerutis, Lithuanian chief 120
Daniel, knight 134
Daniel of Lennewarden, knight 94
Daniil Aleksandrovich, prince of
Moscow 253
Daniil Romanovich, prince and king of
Galicia 35–36, 172, 174, 176, 179, 199–200,
202, 210–219, 221, 224, 235, 279–280, 302
Danilevskii, Igor, historian 301–302
Daugava, river passim
Daugavgrīva, see Dünamünde
Daugavpils, see Dünaburg
Daugmale, Latvia 77
David, biblical king 283
Davyd, archbishop of Novgorod 273, 276
Davyd, duke of Grodno 273–276, 291
Davyd Mstislavich, prince of Rzhev 119
Demin, Anatolii, historian 303
Denmark, Danes passim
Deventer, Netherlands 189n80
Dietrich Damerow, bishop of Dorpat 307
Dietrich von Grüningen, master of the
Teutonic Order 163–164
Dietrich von Kivel, knight 158, 229–233,
250, 257
Dionisii, bishop of Polotsk 82
375
Dircks, Bernhard, historian 168, 216
Dmitrii, Novgorodian 115
Dmitrii Aleksandrovich, grand prince of
Vladimir 227–228, 243, 244n49, 252–253,
257
Dmitrii Mikhailovich, grand prince of
Vladimir 273–274, 277
Dniepr, river 16–17, 37, 295
Dobrynia, posadnik of Novgorod 26–27
Don, river 212
Donner, Gustav Adolf, historian 6, 144–147
Dorpat (Tartu), Estonia passim
Dortmund, Germany 106, 189n80
Dovmont (Daumantas), prince of Pskov
(d. 1299) 11–12, 205, 234–237, 243,
245–247, 249, 252–253, 263–264, 299, 301
Dovmont (Daumantas), Lithuanian prince
(d. 1285) 259
Drohiczyn, Poland 215
Drutsk, Belarus 71n39, 79
Dubrovna, Russia 242, 244
Dünaburg (Daugavpils), Latvia 103,
239–242, 261n125, 289, 291
Dünamünde (Daugavgrīva), Latvia 53, 91,
103–104, 106n199, 130–131, 138, 191, 193,
259n120, 260, 266, 278
Durben (Durbe), Latvia 15, 209, 227, 231n161,
238
Eberhard von Sayn, master of the Teutonic
Order 201
Edivydas, Lithuanian prince 199
Egypt 20
Elbe, river 45, 102
Elevferii Sbyslavich, boyar 236
Elisabeth, empress of Russia 70
Elisabeth of Hungary, princess 34
Emajõgi, river 135
Engelbert, bishop of Curonia 142
Engelbert von Tiesenhausen, knight 137
England 143
Epirus 47
Erfurt, Germany 34n53
Ērģeme, see Ermes
Erik IV, king of Denmark 169
Erik Emune, king of Denmark 36
Erik Knutsson, king of Sweden 86, 88
376
Erik Menved, king of Denmark 258, 261,
267–268, 270, 275
Erik the Holy, king of Sweden 49
Ermes (Ērģeme), Latvia 271
Ernst von Ratzeburg, master of the Teutonic
Order 239–240, 255
Eropkin, Petr Mikhailovich, architect 70
Eskil, archbishop of Lund 50–51
Estonia passim
Estonians 1, 6, 14, 50–51, 61–62, 74, 97, 100,
104, 115, 117, 120–122, 124–126, 131, 139,
146, 154, 161, 169–170, 180, 182, 250, see
also Chuds
Evstafii, prince of Izborsk 275
Falkenau (Kärkna), Estonia 131, 133, 135–136,
138, 203
Fedor, prince of Rzhev 265
Fedor Iaroslavich, prince of Novgorod 108,
128, 134
Fedor Mikhailovich, prince of Pskov 264,
265n140
Fedor Rostislavich, prince of Smolensk 238,
266
Fedor Sviatoslavich, prince 277n196
Fellin (Viljandi), Estonia 117–118, 122, 124,
160, 162–164, 185, 244, 263, 296, 297, 310
Fennell, John, historian 7
Feodosii, monk 23
Feodosii the Greek, monk 24n13
Feoktist, archbishop of Novgorod 270
Finland, Finns 3, 6–7, 19, 45, 49–51, 83–86,
106n199, 130, 141, 144–146, 148–149, 153,
190–194, 198n4, 230–232, 293, 309
Finland, gulf of 256, 258
Finnmark 233
Floria, Boris, historian 176
France 29, 50, 231, 284, 287, 308
Francis of Moliano, bishop of Fermo 237,
241, 286–288
Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor 29n36,
41, 84
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor 84, 181,
211, 280, 286
Frederick II, duke of Austria 217
Frederick of Haseldorp, bishop of Dorpat
232, 246n59, 247, 255
index
Frederick Pernstein, archbishop of Riga 261,
272–273, 286, 288, 291, 307–308
Frisia, Frisians 28, 75
Fulco, archbishop of Gniezno 177, 201
Fulco, bishop of Estonians 50, 51
Galicia 5, 12, 16, 22, 29–30, 32–35, 171–173,
176, 198, 205, 211, 213, 215, 217, 219,
231n159, 235, 280, 292, 302
Gauja, river 67, 68, 73
Gdov, Russia 274–275
Gediminas, grand duke of Lithuania 270–
278, 291, 307
Georgenburg (Jurbarkas?), Lithuania 205
Georgia 272
Gerdenis, duke of Nalsen 205–210, 234,
236–238, 266
Gerhard, abbot 177
Gerhard, bishop of Russia 205
Gerhard, count of Holstein 102n181
Gerhard of Oldenburg, archbishop of
Bremen 85
Gerhard of Lippe, archbishop of Bremen 87
Gerhard von Jork, master of the Teutonic
Order 239
Germany, Germans passim
Gerzike (Jersika), Latvia 14, 65–68, 73, 75,
80, 81n88, 90, 95–99, 101–104, 120, 166,
182, 186–187, 208, 239, 241–242, 262, 306
Gertrude, duchess of Austria 36, 217
Gleb, martyr 148
Gleb, prince of Polotsk 105
Gnegel-Waitschies, Gisela, historian 91
Gniezno, Poland 33, 49, 175, 177, 198n4
Godesalcus, bailiff 181
Gorodets, Russia 225, 235
Gorodishche, Russia 252
Goslar, Germany 189n80
Gotland, Gotlanders 31n41, 37–42, 51, 52,
75, 83, 106, 130, 188–189, 191, 198, 228,
258, 269
Greece, Greeks 20–24, 26n21, 29, 32, 35, 37,
44, 46, 47, 178–179, 189, 211, 218, 280–281,
286, 300, 304, 308
Gregory of San Vitale, cardinal 173
Gregory IX, pope 47, 106n199, 143, 150–151,
153, 169, 175, 178–179, 191–193, 279
index
Gregory X, pope 257, 283, 300
Grodno, Belarus 273–274, 291
Groningen, Netherlands 106
Gulbene, see Schwaneburg
Gunzelin III, count of Schwerin 238–239,
245
Guttorm, jarl of Sweden 50–51
Güyüg, Mongol great khan 220
Haakon IV Haakonsson, king of Norway
152n108, 225, 233
Halych, Ukraine 18, 176, 214n76
Hamburg, Germany 47, 53, 76, 49, 84,
189n80, 232
Harria (Harjumaa), Estonia 117, 119, 121–122,
142–143, 158
Hartwig II, archbishop of Bremen 53, 76–77,
82, 84
Heidenreich, bishop of Culm 201
Hein, Ants, historian 296n93
Heinrich von Lode, knight 142
Hellmann, Manfred, historian 7, 96, 131
Helmet (Helme), Estonia 278
Helmold of Bosau, chronicler 29, 38, 182
Helmold von Lüneburg, knight 137
Henricus Sazendob, Teutonic knight 240n29
Henry, bishop of Ösel 142, 155, 157–158,
200n10
Henry, bishop of Reval 268
Henry, bishop of Votia 232
Henry, Dominican 218n97
Henry, count of Schwerin 88, 182
Henry, duke of Mecklenburg 238, 245
Henry of Livonia, chronicler 8–9, 44, 53–54,
63–66, 68, 70, 73, 75, 77n66, 78–81, 83,
88, 92–94, 96–99, 101, 104, 106, 110–111,
113–114, 116, 118–120, 122–126, 149, 156,
179–184, 288
Henry of Segusio, canonist 45, 46n103
Henry, prior of Falkenau 203
Henry the Bearded, duke of Silesia 176–177
Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony 38, 76, 84
Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor 77, 82, 84
Hermann, bishop of Dorpat 124, 125n283,
129, 135, 137, 159–160, 165
Hermann, bishop of Ösel 255
Hermann Balk 143, 160, 163
377
Hermann von Salza, grand master of the
Teutonic Order 140
Hermann von Wartberge, chronicler 
154–155, 160, 162, 239–240, 242, 306
Hezekiah, king of Judah 148n87
Holme (Mārtiņsala), Latvia 65, 77–78, 81,
90, 92–93
Holstein, Germany 29, 75, 76, 86, 88,
102n181, 138, 198
Holy Land 3, 43–44, 46, 48, 52, 55, 57, 77, 82,
87, 169, 181, 284–287, 306n137, 308
Honorius III, pope 21, 88, 185–187, 192
Horde, Mongolian 212, 219–220, 222, 224,
226, 235, 253, 264–265, 273, 277, see also
Mongolia, Tatars
Hoya, Germany 102n181
Hrushevskyi, Mykhailo, historian 199n8
Hucker, Bernd Ulrich, historian 53, 87
Hungary, Hungarians 16, 22, 30, 32, 34–35,
37, 47, 145, 171–174, 176–179, 183, 188,
211–215, 217, 279–281, 283, 284n26,
284n27, 293, 302, 310
Hyacinth, Dominican 173–174
Iakim, bailiff 128
Iakov, bishop of Polotsk 266
Ianin, Valentin, historian 109
Iaropolk, prince 162n150, 243
Iaroslav Iaroslavich, grand prince of Vladimir
224, 226–227, 229, 235–236, 243, 249,
251–252
Iaroslav Sviatopolkovich, prince of Volhynia
35n59
Iaroslav Vladimirovich, prince of Kiev 62, 105
Iaroslav Vladimirovich, prince of Galicia
29n36
Iaroslav Vladimirovich, prince of Novgorod
84
Iaroslav Vladimirovich, prince of Pskov 113,
122, 126, 129, 134–137, 160, 162–166, 223,
225, 262
Iaroslav Vsevolodovich, grand prince of
Vladimir 108, 124, 126–129, 134–140,
161–162, 168, 174, 192–193, 219–223
Iceland 225
Ikšķile, see Üxküll
Ilia, Novgorodian 115
378
Inge, king of Sweden 36
Ingeborg, daughter of Vladimir
Monomakh 36
Ingeborg, daughter of Valdemar I 29
Ingria, Ingrians 123, 148, 154–157, 161, 192,
230, 232–233, 251, 257, 268, 294, 307
Ingvar Iaroslavich, prince of Lutsk 35n59
Innocent III, pope 21, 47, 55, 144, 171, 173,
184, 192
Innocent IV, pope 47, 169–170, 190, 198,
211–214, 216, 220–222, 257, 259n120, 284
Ireland 197
Israel 153
Italy 24, 57, 215, 286
Iurii, prince of Pskov 134
Iurii Aleksandrovich, prince of
Novgorod 235
Iurii Andreevich, prince of Novgorod  John of Plano Carpini, Franciscan 212–213,
242–243, 246
Iurii Danilovich, grand prince of Vladimir
264–265, 273–277
Iurii Lvovich, prince of Galicia 35n59
Iurii Vsevolodovich, grand prince of Vladimir
113, 124, 145, 178–179, 188
Ivan, bishop of Suzdal 30
Ivan Aleksandrovich, prince of Smolensk 265
Ivan Fedorovich, prince of Pskov 265
Ivan Vsevolodovich, prince of Starodub 219
Ivanko, posadnik of Novgorod 127
Izborsk 134, 136–137, 160–162, 165, 246, 275,
297, 299
Izhora, river 148–149
Iziaslav, prince of Polotsk 209, 237
Iziaslav, prince of Vitebsk 209, 237
Iziaslav Iaroslavich, prince of Kiev 24
Iziaslav Mstislavich, prince of Kiev 174
Jaakkola, Jalmari, historian 6, 144, 146
Jacques de Vitry, chronicler 46
Jan Długosz, chronicler 174–175, 216
Jarosław, Poland 211
Jelgava, see Mitau
Jens Kande, captain in Reval 277
Jersika, see Gerzike
Jerusalem 43
Jerwia (Järvamaa), Estonia 88, 117, 119,
142–143, 159n136, 245
Johan Sverkersson, king of Sweden 88
Johann, count of Holstein 102n181
index
Johann von Üxküll, knight 239–242
Johannes von Dolen, knight 88, 137
Johannes von Tiesenhausen, knight 102n181
Johannes II von Vechten, archbishop of
Riga 255
Johannes III von Schwerin, archbishop of
Riga 260
Johansen, Paul, historian 39n72, 83–84, 131,
158, 230, 231n156
John, chaplain of William of Modena 88
John, legendary Prester King 178, 283
John III Doukas Vatatzes, Emperor of Nicaea
211, 215
John XXII, pope 270, 287
John Boccamazza, cardinal 283
John Kamateros, patriarch of
Constantinople 21
218–223, 284–285
Kaibolovo, Russia 156
Kaliman Asen, tsar of Bulgaria 211
Kalisz, Poland 176
Kalka, river 104, 105n194
Kaloyan, ruler of Bulgaria 21, 171
Kamień, see Cammin
Karakorum, Mongolia 212, 220–221
Karamzin, Nikolai, historian 80, 266
Karelia, Karelians 19, 45, 84, 150, 154–157, 161,
190–193, 225, 228, 230–233, 246n59, 247,
249, 251, 256–258, 268, 290, 293, 307, 310
Kärkna, see Falkenau
Karkus (Karksi), Estonia 278
Karl, bishop of Linköping 182
Karl Ulfsson 231n161
Karl, jarl of Sweden 182
Karl von Trier, grand master of the Teutonic
Order 287
Karschau (Karšuva), Lithuania 205
Kashubia, Poland 283
Kelch, Christian, chronicler 70, 71n38
Kexholm (Korela, Priozersk), Russia 257,
293–294
Khoroshkevich, Anna, historian 251
Khrushchov, Andrei Fedorovich,
nobleman 70n37
Kiev 15–17, 22–24, 29, 33, 35, 37, 62n2, 69,
104, 105n198, 139, 145, 171, 173–176, 179,
211–212, 221, 251, 301, 303
index 379

Kirill I, metropolitan of Kiev 12, 175 Lembitu, Estonian elder 117

Kirill II, metropolitan of Kiev 215, 230, Lena, Sweden 86
301–302 Leszek the Black, duke of Kujawy 35n59,
Kirill, prince 252 280
Kirill Sinkinich, Novgorodian 135, 137 Leszek the White, duke of Krakow 34–36, 176
Kirpichnikov, Anatolii, historian 167 Lettgallia, Lettgallians, Letts passim
Kirrumpäh (Kirumpää), Estonia 274 Lev Danilovich, prince of Galicia 36, 217,
Kivel, see Dietrich, Titmanovich 235, 282
Knud VI, king of Denmark 29, 48–49, 76, Levāns, Andris, historian 96n154
82, 84–85 Liège, Belgium 130
Knud Lavard, duke of Schleswig 25, 36, 52 Lihula, see Leal
Knut Eriksson, king of Sweden 83, 86 Lind, John, historian 30, 149, 152, 192n99,
Kokenhusen (Koknese), Latvia 14, 65–68, 224n126, 257, 269n157
73, 75, 80, 81n88, 91–95, 101–102, 124, 182, Lindner, Michael, historian 29n36
208, 260, 295–296, 310 Linköping, Sweden 106n199, 182, 191
Kokenhusen, see Rudolf, Sophia, Theodoric Lipitsa, river 108–109
Konrad Kesselhut, vice-master of the Lippstadt, Germany 189n80
Teutonic Order 275 Listerby, Sweden 51n126
Konrad von Mandern, master of Teutonic Lithuania passim
Order 247, 248 Livonia passim
Konstantin, prince of Polotsk 206–209, 237 Livs 14, 41, 44–45, 53–54, 65, 67–69, 75–78,
Konstantin Rostislavich, prince of Smolensk 80–83, 90–93, 95–96, 98–100, 109, 113,
227, 243, 252 115–116, 128, 139, 180, 182, 184, 309
Konstantin Vsevolodovich, prince of Loccum, Germany 77
Novgorod 189 Lode, see Heinrich, Odward
Koporye, Russia 154–156, 158, 161, 163, 230, Logoisk, Belarus 79
233, 253, 256, 299 Lombardy 30
Korela, see Kexholm Loorits, Oskar, folklorist 6
Korpela, Jukka, historian 191, 193n101, 194 Louis IX, king of France 284, 301n110
Krakow, Poland 33–34, 37, 172, 175–176 Lovat, river 37, 80, 274
Krantz, Albert, chronicler 70n38 Lubāns, lake 107, 207
Kuchkin, Vladimir, historian 141 Lübeck, Germany 37–39, 41, 85, 106, 138,
Kujawy, Poland 35n59, 217n91 188, 189n80, 191, 197–198, 215, 228, 231,
Kunya, river 244n53 247–248, 250, 255, 258, 260, 263, 269,
270, 277, 293
Läänemaa, see Wiek Ludolf of Smolensk, envoy 98
Ladoga, Russia 40n76, 49, 148, 151, 154, 161, Ludsen (Ludza), Latvia 207, 254n96
192, 226, 251 Luga, river 154, 157, 161, 163, 167, 232
Ladoga, lake 31n41, 257, 293 Lund, Sweden 47–50, 53, 74, 83–87, 169–170,
Lämmijärv, lake 247, 263 184
Landskrona, Russia 257, 269 Lüneburg, see Helmold, Otto
Langebrücke (Pikasilla), Estonia 200, 223, 225 Lyon, France 198n4, 211–213, 215, 222n113,
Lapland 257 283, 286, 300
Latin Empire 20, 47, 178, 184, 300
Latvia, Latvians passim Mačva, Serbia 35n59, 282
Leal (Lihula), Estonia 88, 124, 129, 133, 142, Mads Gøye, seneschal 248
186, 244, 260 Magdeburg, Germany 8, 29, 49, 87, 129
Lebus (Lubusz), Poland 177, 281, 292 Magnus Eriksson, king of Sweden 147, 149,
Łęczyca, Poland 212, 280 152, 257n111, 294
380
Magnus Erlendsson, earl of Orkney 25
Magnus Nielsen, ruler of Denmark and
Sweden 36
Maholm (Mahu, Viru-Nigula), Estonia 244,
296n93
Malmfred, Russian princess 36
Maria, Russian princess 253
Marienburg (Alūksne), Latvia 114, 254n94
Marienhausen (Viļaka), Latvia 114
Marquard Brede, captain of Reval 295n85
Martha, queen of Lithuania 201, 234
Martin IV, pope 300
Martin Cromer, chronicler 70n38
Martin of Sandomierz, prior 174
Mārtiņsala, see Holme
Maschke, Erich, historian 304
Masovia, Poland 35–36, 174, 176–177, 179,
212, 217
Matthew, bishop of Krakow 33
Matthew Paris, chronicler 28, 143, 300
Mažeika, Rasa, historian 308
Mecklenburg, Germany 48, 238, 245
Medebach, Germany 39
Mediterranean Sea 24, 43, 46n105, 257, 304,
308
Meerapalu, Estonia 247
Meinhard, bishop of Livonia 14, 53, 56,
75–78, 80–82, 85, 90–92, 184, 309
Metimne, Latvia 111
Meyer, Leo, historian 9n30
Michael VIII Palaiologos, Emperor of
Byzantium 300
Michael Autoreianos, patriarch of Nicaea 21
Mieszko III the Old, duke of Poland 35n59
Mikhail, posadnik of Novgorod 243
Mikhail Iaroslavich, grand prince of
Vladimir 243, 264–265, 273
Mikhail Konstantinovich, prince of Vitebsk
237
Mikhail Vsevolodovich, prince of Chernigov
108, 128, 133–134, 174, 179, 279
Mikkeli, see St Michael
Mindaugas, king of Lithuania 139, 199–203,
205, 210, 214, 216, 226–228, 234–235,
267, 288
Minsk, Belarus 35n59, 36, 71, 79, 277n196
Mitau (Jelgava), Latvia 165, 245n56
index
Mocha, Estonia 142
Modena 142, 145, 198n4
Mongolia, Mongols 4–5, 16, 18, 22, 28n29,
30–31, 43, 104, 132, 143, 145, 174,
206n37, 211–214, 216–217, 219–221, 224,
226–227, 229, 233, 249, 251, 253, 274,
279, 280–286, 292, 298, 301, 310, see also
Horde, Tatars
Moors 46
Moravia 216–217, 283
Mordvins 178
Moscow, Russia 4, 18, 26, 80, 144, 253,
264–265, 273–274, 303, 305
Mostka, Liv 115
Mstislav, grand prince of Kiev 35n59
Mstislav Romanovich, grand prince of Kiev
69, 104
Mstislav Vladimirovich, grand prince of Kiev
36
Mstislav Davydovich, prince of Smolensk
106
Mstislav Mstislavich the Bold, prince of
Novgorod 35n59, 108, 112, 116–121, 126,
162n150, 172, 174
Mstislav Rostislavich, prince of Novgorod
62
Mstislav Vladimirovich, prince of Novgorod
62
Mstislav Vsevolodovich, prince of Chernigov
188
Mugurēvičs, Ēvalds, historian 297n97
Münster, Germany 106, 189n80, 255
Myra (Demre), Turkey 24
Nalsen (Nalšia), Lithuania 205, 208,
234–239, 245, 262
Naples, Italy 229
Narva, Estonia 231n156, 269
Narva, river 17, 64, 83, 225, 230, 232, 242, 244,
249, 250, 256, 258, 268–269, 274–275,
294, 295n85
Nazarova, Evgeniia, historian 71, 112n225,
123n275, 128, 163
Neman, river 304
Nessau (Nieszawa), Poland 240n29
Neuhausen (Vastseliina), Estonia 241n38,
306–307
index 381

Neva, river 3n6, 37, 127, 141, 143, 145, 147–155, Otto Paschedach, Teutonic knight 254
157, 160–161, 169, 192, 242, 257–258, Otto von Lauterberg, master of the Teutonic
269–270, 293, 295, 299, 302, 310 Order 244, 248, 250
Nevrui, Mongol leader 224 Otto von Lüneburg, knight 158, 229, 231
Nicaea (İznik), Turkey 21, 47, 178, 184, 189, Ottokar II, king of Bohemia 217, 280,
211, 215 282–283
Nicholas, bishop of Riga 103, 129–132, 138,
198, 203 Pada, river 243, 244n52
Nicholas, bishop of Schleswig 86 Paide, see Weißenstein
Nicholas, abbot of Dargun 223 Paistel (Paistu), Estonia 278
Nicholas of Nalsen, see Suxe Palestine, see Holy Land
Nifont, bishop of Novgorod 26 Papendorf (Rubene), Latvia 9, 111
Nikolai the Greek, bishop of Rostov and Pärnu, see Old Pernau
Polotsk 82 Pashuto, Vladimir, historian 4, 152
Nizhny Novgorod, Russia 225 Paulus Juusten, bishop of Viborg and Åbo
Noghai, Mongol emir 253, 280 50
Nolte, Hans-Heinrich, historian 5 Peder Sunesen, bishop of Roskilde 86
Noonan, Thomas, historian 27n24, 31 Peipus, lake 3n6, 6–7, 17, 63–64, 84, 127, 161,
Nordalbingia, Germany 84 169, 265, 274
Norway, Norwegians 25, 36, 51, 86, 148, 152, Pelgui, Ingrian elder 148
224n126, 225, 233 Pereiaslav, Russia 17–18, 127–128, 134–136,
Nöteborg (Shlisselburg, Pähkinälinna), Russia 154, 243, 253
294 Pernau, see Old Pernau
Novgorod, Russia passim Peter of Dusburg, chronicler 70n38, 275,
Novgorod-Siverskyi, Ukraine 35n59 290
Nurmekund, Estonia 142 Petrus, Russian bishop 211
Philip, German king 84
Ochela, Latvia 62, 65 Philip, bishop of Ratzeburg 87, 101, 109–111,
Odenpäh (Otepää), Estonia 62, 71n38, 117, 183
84, 88, 113, 115–122, 124, 125n283, 129, Philip II Augustus, king of France 29
135–137, 160, 162, 164, 166 Philip IV the Fair, king of France 287
Odward von Lode, knight 142 Philip VI, king of France 308
Ogre, river 92 Pikasilla, see Langebrücke
Okhta, river 257n112 Piotr Włostowicz, palatine 33
Olaf the Holy, king of Norway 25 Pitz, Ernst, historian 55
Öland, Sweden 51n126, 198n4 Plettenberg, Wolter von, master of the
Old Pernau (Vana-Pärnu), Estonia 228 Teutonic Order 2
Olomouc, Czech Republic 175n20, 198n4, Pliusa, river 63
216, 283 Poland, Poles passim
Opatów, Poland 177 Polonka, river 262
Opizo, abbot 215 Polotsk, Belarus passim
Ösel, Osilians (Saaremaa), Estonia 14, 52, Polovtsians 23n12, 104
54, 85–86, 104, 121–122, 124, 142, 154–155, Pomerania, Pomeranians, Germany and Poland
157–158, 164, 187, 200n10, 204, 227, 255, 35, 48, 51, 53, 69, 81, 179, 214n78, 283
260–261, 267–268, 271, 289, 307 Pomerelia, Poland 198n7, 288
Osnabrück, Germany 189n80 Pomesania, Poland 197, 204
Otepää, see Odenpäh Porkhov, Russia 262
Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor 84, 87, 122 Prague, Czech Republic 37, 198n4
Otto of St Nicola in Carcere, cardinal 130 Prussia, Prussians passim
382
Pskov, Russia passim
Puide, Estonia 122
Purnau (Purnava), Latvia 114
Quremsa, Mongol governor 280
Rainald, archbishop of Cologne 39
Rakvere, see Wesenberg
Ravenna, Italy 286
Regensburg, Germany 37
Reval (Tallinn), Estonia 1, 52, 61, 86, 88,
110, 122, 124, 129, 131–133, 138, 142–143,
169, 205n33, 224–225, 228–229, 245,
249, 254–255, 260, 268–269, 271, 277,
295n85, 296
Revala, Estonia 142
Rēzekne, see Rositten
Rhineland, Germany 182
Riga, Latvia passim
Roger II, king of Sicily 20
Rogvolod, Varangian prince 79n74
Roman, prince of Briansk 234
Roman Danilovich, prince of Galicia 36, 217
Roman Mstislavich, prince of Galicia 34,
171–172
Rome passim
Rositten (Rēzekne), Latvia 207, 254, 291,
295
Roskilde, Denmark 48, 86
Rostislav Borisovich, prince of Kiev 105n198
Rostislav Mikhailovich, prince of Novgorod
35n59, 108, 134, 211, 282
Rostislav Mstislavich, grand prince of Kiev
107, 174
Rostov, Russia 16, 82, 227, 253
Rotalia, Estonia 188
Rowell, Stephen, historian 244, 252, 308
Rubene, see Papendorf
Rudolf I, German king 259
Rudolf of Kokenhusen, knight 97
Rudolf von Ems, literate 37
Rudolf von Kassel, Swrod Brother 153
Rudolf von Ungern, knight 239–240
Rügen, Germany 28, 48, 198
Rus’, Russia, Russians passim
Russin, elder of the Lettgallians 109
Russow, Balthasar, chronicler 1
Ryazan, Russia 17–18, 145
Rybina, Elena, historian 4, 26
Rzhev, Russia 119, 166, 265
index
Saaremaa, see Ösel
Sablia, Russia 154, 157
Sackala, Sackalians, Estonia 87, 100, 109–110,
114, 116–118, 120–125, 167
Samland, Kaliningrad Oblast 197, 204
Samogitia, Samogitians, Lithuania 139, 163,
199, 202, 227, 238, 259
Sandomierz, Poland 34, 35n59, 36, 174, 177
Saracens 45–47, 175, 309
Sartaq, Mongol ruler 284, 285
Saule, Lithuania 15, 139, 140, 141, 164
Savolax (Savo), Finland 190
Saxony, Germany 34, 39, 53, 182, 189, 271
Schleswig, Germany 41, 76, 84–86, 169
Schmidt, Christoph, historian 95, 180
Schwaneburg (Gulbene), Latvia 208
Schwerin, Germany 41n86, 88, 182, 238, 245
Segeberg, Germany 75
Segewold (Sigulda), Latvia 287, 289
Seljuks  20, 24
Selonia, Selonians, Latvia 15, 53, 68, 81, 94,
186, 202, 205
Semgallia, Semgallians, Latvia 15, 65, 89, 130,
132–133, 139–140, 197, 198n4, 227–228,
238, 245n56, 259, 262, 288
Sepp, Hendrik, historian 6
Serbia, Serbs 21, 172n6, 280, 300, 308
Sesswegen (Cesvaine), Latvia 96
Shaskolskii, Igor, historian 4, 146, 152
Shelon, river 121, 244
Shvarn, grand duke of Lithuania 235
Šiauliai, Lithuania 139
Sicily 20, 300
Siegfried, archbishop of Bremen 76
Siemowit I, duke of Masovia 35n59, 36,
217
Sigtuna, Sweden 41, 50n118, 51n126,
Sigurd, king of Norway 36
Silesia 176, 217n92
Simeon of Polotsk, bishop of Tver and
Polotsk 206, 207n41, 208
Sit, river 145
Smolensk, Russia 16–18, 39–41, 67, 80, 82,
98, 101, 104–108, 119, 121, 125, 145, 165,
168, 174, 186, 188, 199, 202, 208, 210, 227,
237–238, 243, 252, 265, 279, 303
Soest, Germany 106, 189n80
Sontagana (Soontagana), Estonia 117
Sophia, princess of Minsk 36–37
Sophia, queen of Sweden 293
index
Sophia of Kokenhusen,
noblewoman 102n181
Sosoly, tribe 62
Sotecle, Latvia 109
Spain 46
Squires, Catherine, Germanist 305
Stefan Nemanjić, ruler of Serbia 21
Stensby, Denmark 142, 145–146, 157, 169, 245,
259n120, 268
Stephan V, king of Hungary 280, 283n21
Stephen, archbishop of Uppsala 50
Stephen, deacon from Polotsk 92
Šterns, Indriķis, historian 110
St Michael (Mikkeli), Finland 190
Stockholm, Sweden 165
Stryjkowski, Maciej, chronicler 71, 105,
240n29, 266
Sturla Þórðarson, Icelandic author 225
Sudovia, Sudovians, Poland, Lithuania and
Belarus 199, 202, 217, 281
Suxe (Nicholas) of Nalsen, nobleman 238,
239n22
Suzdal, Russia 16–18, 30, 40, 107–108,
123–129, 133, 135–137, 140, 147, 159–160,
165, 167, 174, 178–179, 188, 219, 220, 225,
243, 246
Svend III Grathe, king of Denmark 41
Sverker I, king of Sweden 36
Sverker II Karlsson, king of Sweden 83, 86
Sviatokhna, legendary princess of Polotsk
69–70, 71n38
Sviatoslav, prince of Trubchevsk 134
Sviatoslav Iaroslavich, grand prince of Tver
235–236, 243, 249
Sviatoslav Igorevich, prince of
Novgorod-Siverskyi 35n59
Sviatoslav Mstislavich, prince of Smolensk
106, 108, 121
Sviatoslav Vsevolodovich, prince of Novgorod,
grand prince of Vladimir 108, 113, 221
Swantepolk, duke of Pomerania 35
Sweden, Swedes passim
Syria 46
Szeklers 280
Talibald, elder of the Letts 109–110
Tallinn, see Reval
Tarwast (Tarvastu), Estonia 278
383
Tartu, see Dorpat
Tatars 143, 178, 214, 218, 221, 222n113,
225, 279–281, 283, 292, 302, see also
Mongols, Horde
Tatishchev, Vasilii, historian 69–71, 105, 171
Taube, Michael von, historian 69, 71, 72n45,
102, 240
Tautvila, prince of Polotsk 199–205,
208–209, 223, 226–227, 234, 242–243,
252n89, 266
Tavastia, Tavastians, Finland 83–84, 127, 148,
150–152, 156, 190–193, 230–231, 257
Temer, knight 221
Tesovo, Russia 135, 154, 157
Theodoric, bishop of Estonia 56, 83, 91, 92,
95, 110, 117, 184
Theodoric of Bekeshovede, knight 110, 112,
116, 118–119, 121, 129, 137
Theodoric of Kokenhusen, knight 102n181,
107, 207–208
Theodoric Vyshusen, bishop of Dorpat 241,
261
Thomas, bishop of Finland 7, 144, 146
Thomas Morosini, Latin patriarch of
Constantinople 20
Thomas of Smolensk, resident of Smolensk
106
Tiesenhausen, see Engelbert, Johannes
Timofei, chronicler 11
Titmanovich, knight 230, 256–258
Töde Möngke, Mongol khan 253
Tolowa, Latvia 14, 64–65, 67, 73, 109, 112–114,
119–121, 123, 126, 129, 167–168, 185–186
Tolsburg (Toolse), Estonia 250
Töregene, mother of Güyüg 220
Torma, Estonia 117
Toropets, Russia 105, 108, 119, 166, 228,
244n53
Torzhok, Russia 126, 134, 136, 166, 265
Traidenis, grand duke of Lithuania 235, 238,
240, 242, 255
Trebbia, Italy 215
Treniota, Lithuanian duke 205, 228, 234
Treyden (Turaida), Latvia 114, 184, 260,
295
Trikaten (Trikāta), Latvia 109–110
Tirpoli, Palestine 288
Trondheim, Norway 48, 233
384 index

Trubchevsk, Russia 134 Vasilko Boriosvich, legendary prince of

Turaida, see Treyden Polotsk 69, 70n38, 80
Turgenev, Aleksandr, historian 178, 179n37, Vasilko Romanovich, prince of Volhynia 35,
219 172–173, 179, 199, 211–214, 216, 219, 221,
Turkey 24 302
Turku, see Åbo Vastseliina, see Neuhausen
Tver, Russia 18, 206, 207n41, 208, 235, Velikaya river 17, 160
252–253, 264–265, 273–274 Velikiye Luki 65, 80, 119
Tverdilo Ivankovich, leader of Pskov 160, Vernadsky, George, historian 4
165, 167 Verona, Italy 214n78
Tverdislav Mikhailovich, posadnik of Vesike, Liv cheiftain 69
Novgorod 108, 121 Viacheslav, tysiatskii of Novgorod 127, 133
Viacheslav Gorislavich, Novgorodian 134
Udokha, river 244 Viachko, Novgorodian 71
Uffe, archbishop of Lund 169 Viachko, prince 71
Ugaunia, Ugaunians, Estonia 63–64, 84, 87, Viachko, prince of Kokenhusen 66, 68–69,
100, 109–110, 112–125 70n38, 71–72, 91, 93–94, 102, 124–125,
Ulf Fasi, jarl of Sweden 152, 231n161 180, 182, 186
Ulricus, Dominican 175 Viborg (Viipuri), Russia 50, 257–258, 273,
Uppland, Sweden 24, 39 293–294
Uppsala, Sweden 48, 50–51, 86, 150, 231, 257 Vienna, Austria 29n36
Urban IV, pope 47, 198n7, 206–207, 257, 282 Vienne, France 287
Urdoma, river 273 Vikings 17, 36–37, 41, 48, 52, see also
Üxküll (Ikšķile), Latvia 53, 74, 77, 78, 80–82, Varangians
90, 184, 295 Viļaka, see Marienhausen
Üxküll, see Conrad, Johann Viljandi, see Fellin
Uzbek, khan 265, 273 Vilnius, see Wilno
Virgil, poet 95
Vaislanus, priest 232n163 Vironia, Estonia 83, 88, 131, 142–143, 158,
Vaišelga, grand duke of Lithuania 209, 159n136, 204, 230–232, 243–244, 256,
234–235, 237 258
Valdemar, bishop of Schleswig 76, 84–85 Viru-Nigula, see Maholm
Valdemar, king of Sweden 293 Visby, Sweden 187, 189n80, 191, 256
Valdemar I king of Denmark 29, 36–37, 43, Vitebsk, Belarus 17, 40, 70, 79, 82, 106, 206,
48 209–210, 237, 256
Valdemar II, king of Denmark 28, 41, 52, 79, Vitus, bishop of Lithuania 177n28, 201
84, 86–88, 122, 138, 157, 169, 181–182, 187 Vladimir, Russia 12, 16–18, 30, 108, 123, 141,
Valerius, archbishop of Uppsala 86 144–145, 168, 172, 178–179, 219, 221,
Valmiera, see Wolmar 224–225, 235, 249, 253, 264, 273, 301–303
Varangians 25, 30, 31n41, 37–39, 79n74, 189, Vladimir (Volodymyr-Volynskyi), Ukraine
see also Vikings 199
Varbola, see Warbola Vladimir, prince 269
Varkļāni, see Warka Vladimir, prince of Polotsk 78–80, 91–95,
Vasilii, prince of Minsk 277n196 104–105, 120, 182
Vasilii Aleksandrovich, prince of Novgorod Vladimir, legendary prince of Polotsk 69
225–226 Vladimir Iaroslavich, prince of Galicia 33, 69
Vasilii Iaroslavich, grand prince of Vladimir Vladimir Monomakh, grand prince of Kiev
252 36
index
Vladimir Mstislavich, prince of Pskov 98,
108–113, 116–122, 125–126, 128–129, 134,
136–137, 180, 183
Vladimir Riurikovich, grand prince of Kiev
174
Vladimir Sviatoslavich, prince of Kiev 15,
22, 79n74
Voin, prince of Polotsk 277n196
Voishchina, Russia 202
Volga, river 16, 178, 212, 235, 284
Volhynia 5, 12, 16, 31n41, 32, 34, 35, 171–173,
176, 199–200, 205, 210–212, 215, 218, 235,
279–280, 285, 292, 304
Volkhov, river 27, 37, 151
Volkwin, master of the Sword Brothers 139,
248
Volodar Glebovich, prince of Minsk 35n59,
36, 71, 79
Volynskii, Artemii Petrovich,
statesman 70n37
Voronino, Russia 156
Votia, Votians, Russia 63, 123, 143, 145–146,
153–159, 161, 164, 166–169, 230–233, 245,
250–251, 256–258, 268, 294–295, 297,
309
Vsevolod, prince of Gerzike 66, 68–69,
70n38, 71–72, 90, 95–99, 101–104, 120,
166, 182, 186
Vsevolod Iur’evich, prince of Novgorod 108,
123n274
Vsevolod Iur’evich, grand prince of
Vladimir 17, 107
Vsevolod Mstislavich, prince of
Novgorod 62, 108, 113, 119, 121–122, 182
Vsevolod Olgovich, grand prince of Kiev 33
Vsevolod Sviatoslavich, prince of
Chernigov 35n59
Vykintas, duke of Samogitia 199–200
Vytenis, grand duke of Lithuania 266–267
Waiga, Estonia 62, 117, 142
Wallachia 184
Wane, Liv chieftain 69
385
Warbola (Varbola), Estonia 113, 117–118, 120
Waremarus, Russian princeps 124
Waridote, elder of the Lettgallians 109
Warka (Varkļāni), Latvia 107, 207–208
Warmia, Poland 197, 204
Weißenstein (Paide), Estonia 244–245, 267,
290
Wenden (Cēsis), Latvia 97, 109, 112–113,
122–123, 129, 185, 228, 240n29, 295–297
Wends 29, 43, 51–52, 113
Wesenberg (Rakvere), Estonia 117, 242–247,
250, 297
Weser, river 102n181
Westphalia 37, 39, 53, 75, 189
Wiek (Läänemaa), Estonia 88, 130, 142, 157,
228, 250
William, abbot of Æbelholt 29
William, bishop of Cammin 214n78
William of Modena, bishop 7, 88, 104, 107,
126, 130–132, 138, 142–143, 145–147, 153,
174n13, 186–188, 194, 197, 198n4, 207
William of Chartres, chaplain 301n110
William of Rubruck, Franciscan 281, 284,
285
Wilno (Vilnius), Lithuania 271–272, 276
Wincenty Kadłubek, chronicler 33–34
Winter, Eduard, historian 4
Władysław I the Elbow-High, king of
Poland 288, 293
Władysław II, duke of Poland 33
Wolkenburg, Latvia 239
Wolmar (Valmiera), Latvia 112
Wrocław, Poland 175–176, 217
Yarmouth, England 28n29
Yaroslavl, Russia 253
Ydumea, Latvia 109–111, 113
Ymera, Latvia 97, 109, 113, 122–123
Yso, bishop of Verden 117
Ystad, Sweden 169
Zatko, James, historian 219
Zealand (Sælland), Denmark 142